Citizen's Challenge

I VOTE 4 ENERGY

2012-01-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

By Stephen Lacey on Jan 6, 2012

The American Petroleum Institute rolled out it’s latest multi-media assault this week to convince voters and politicians to continue supporting the fossil-fueled status quo. The campaign comes just as the primary election season reaches a fever pitch, and is designed to keep political hopefuls focused on “brown jobs.”

API’s newest television ad, which supposedly portrays grassroots supporters expressing their love of oil and gas, was recently shown by undercover activists to be nothing more than a scripted job. Not much of a surprise, perhaps.

I think this alternative ad says it much better than the American Petroleum Institute's efforts:

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Here's the story from your friendly undercover Greenpeace activists:

Stephen Schneider ~ an unauthorized transcript of “Science and Distortion"

2012-01-05T21:52:00.007-07:00

“Science and Distortion - Stephen Schneider”

Produced by Stephen Thomson and Plomomedia

The following comes from a tribute to the late Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider.

It is an unauthorized transcript {though I have asked for and received Stephen Thomson's after the fact blessing} of a video montage featuring clips of Stephen Schneider speaking at Climate One including interview clips of a young Dr. Schneider explaining the contemporary "consensus."

As Rob Honeycutt over at SkepticalScience said: “Not only is this an excellently produced video but it is a wonderful and balanced encapsulation of the reality of the climate situation and public debate.”

I myself am so impressed with what Dr. Schneider said that I’ve decide to transcribe the audio of this video (including time signatures).
I do this for my own edification since the process allows me to truly digest the message and I'm posting it here because I hope it might be of use to someone else.

Please feel free to copy and share the following but, please remember to acknowledge Stephen Thomson and Plomomedia as the producers of this excellent video ~ for a link to view the video include: http://www.skepticalscience.com/science-and-distortion-stephen-schneider.html

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In memory of Professor Stephen Schneider
1945 - 2010

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Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider speaking:

00:15... “How did we know in the 1970s pretty much what would happen? It was theory then. And since then nature has been cooperating with theory but we kind of knew what would happen. You couldn’t add 4 watts of extra heat over every square meter and have nothing happen."

[ cut to young Stephen Schneider ]
0:30... “Scientific consensus that co2 will build up and be a potential problem is very large. But a scientific conscious on precisely how influential it will be in ten years, in twenty, in what areas climates will get better and what would be worse this is where the controversy comes in."
[ end clip ]

0:50... “We also knew that you had to stop using the atmosphere as an unpriced sewer to dump your smoke stack and tail pipe waste and your land-use change interactions. All of that was known. It was not just in the club of a hundred left brained people.

1:05... "We testified to congress, we talked to ministers, there were national and international meetings, it was out there.”

 [ cut to old news clips “... some of the things we are doing ourselves are accelerating the process... our burning of fossil fuels, etc. . . is a very big contributor to the greenhouse effect etc. ]

1:35... “So why didn’t we succeed? What happened?”

“Science is Never Settled”

1:40... “Climate science is a system science. It’s like trying to understand your body. Or trying to figure out something with cancer, or how the educational system is going to work most effectively, how are we going to do security? Everyone of these complex systems problems has multiple components and when you break them down what you find out is (2:00) rarely do we know everything and rarely do we know nothing. So, we have to break system science into the well established components, which are settled. I’ll tell you a few. Into competing explanations where our work has been able to get us to winnow it down to two or three possibilities.

 [ graph of model results per the IPCC ]

2:15... “Here’s where the disconnect comes along. Special interests will grab
[cut to - “American Chemistry Council” ad and parade of talking heads.]
what’s convenient for the ideology, or their position, so what you end up with, is you end up with a cacophony, typically of people selecting stuff out of context. Then you end up with the end of the world versus good for you.

 [ cut to Bachmann Singer, Leighton Steward, Singer... CO2 is natural....vs. malaria extreme... drought catastrophe, enviro refugees, global catastrophe, +8°etc. ]

3:30... “I’ll confess my prejudice, the ‘end of the world’ and ‘good for you’ are the two loosest probability outcomes.

“System Science”

“What we are looking at is a multiple range of potential outcomes and what system scientists do is they winnow out the relative likelihood of these multiple outcomes.

"So if you try to cover it as a yes our no and you go out there and you take a 200 scientist report like the IPCC, it goes through three years of writing, two rounds of reviews and a thousand review comments on every chapter.

4:00... "And then two petroleum geologists, you know who are special interest in finding oil paid by you know which oil company because they have PhDs are given equal status on story or television and you see we get a little mad about that and we call that utter distortion. And they say “oh no, that’s balance.” It is not balance, it is utter distortion because they are not reporting the relative creditability of the multiple positions. And it means that you’re leaving it to the public and political world to figure that out for themselves. Their capable of it, but they rarely do it.”

[ 4:30 cut - ad co2 good for you, write congress, lobby against carbon dioxide controls ... ]

“Value judgement”

5:00... “Supposing you got a spot on your lung from a chest x-ray which you did for a different purpose than looking for cancer. Well it could be a healed lesion or it could be the beginning of an actual tumor. And I actually know two examples where this really happened. So they were asked what to do. Well what should we do doc? Well do a biopsy, well it’s hard to get to, we have to do surgery, surgery has rises, it’s expensive, it’s painful.

"In other words there’s a price for a false positive. If you believe that could be cancer and you try to take it out you will pay a price. So OK we don’t want to pay the price, so let’s wait and see, what can we do. And the doc says we can wait and if it grows be better take it out, and of course this patient said: but what’s the chance that if I wait and it grows that it becomes metastatic and therefore it will be too late and I’ll be dead whereas if I take it out now in a precautionary mode pay the price for the surgery I might not need I’ll have a lower likelihood of being dead. Now what’s the right answer to that? There is no right answer. That’s your value judgement.

“Risk Management”

6:05... "How many people in this place, in this fire prone California have had a house fire? (show of hands) A few of you Typically it’s one to two percent. How many of you have fire insurance? We already are very risk adverse, when we have consequences that matter. We do not need 95% certainty. Here is where again (6:30) people frame this problem by looking for exceptions to the conventional wisdom and claim until the exceptions are resolved it isn’t proved and it’s premature to act, yet we’re acting on our 1% risk and paying insurance. And here were talking about 50% risk to the planetary life support system and they’re telling us that’s not certain enough."

[ cut to Strassel and his parade of discredited denialist talking points, blaming: “.... or other things we just don’t understand.”
{The patent lie here is that scientists do understand those aspects of our climate to a high degree of realist certainty.} ]

7:15... "It’s not lost on some of you that that’s special interest blabber. We heard that from the American Tobacco Institute for years. Remember, “three studies are equivocal about whether smoking causes cancer.”

[ cut to - Tobacco Institute Ad, questioning the evidence ]

8:00... “And, and they correctly said and still to this day we do not know biophysically the precise links between smoking and cancer.

"So they give you a “therefore”, when there’s no therefore there, therefore it’s premature to act. That’s personal value judgement of risk management. Of course they want to protect market share. Whereas the data are so overwhelming epidemiologically, you know the statistics, that you’d have to crazy not to control this even though you don’t understand every detail of the mechanisms.

8:30... "So this is again where we have to do risk management. Which is how do you want to deal with a preponderance of evidence not an absolute certainty in every detail."

[ cut to - republicans debate, not settled, not a crisis, carbon myth ]

9:00... "Let’s talk about tipping points. So what about Greenland, how could Greenland be a tipping point. Right now it’s melting at an unprecedented rate. The water is rolling down, nobody knows if the water is freezing on the way down or reaching the bottom. If the water makes it all the way to the bottom, then it’s going to heat the bottom and lubricate it. Once you start melting it, it creates a self fulfilling prophecy where you could move towards 5 meters of sea rise and there’d be no way to stop it.

"What we don’t know is, does it need one more degree before that happens, two or three, all I can say with high degree of confidence is the more we keep adding unprecedented levels of warming to the system the more the number of tipping points that are going to be crossed. We know for sure that they’re there. We don’t know for sure where they are.

9:55... “This is not just an academic exercise, this is something we’ve got to have people deeply engaged in. Because we’re talking about the sustainability for their children, their grand-children and the rest of nature... our behavior.

“What’s the worst thing about tipping points like Greenland, we will probably not know when we’ve crossed it for fifty years. So our behavior in the next generation could precondition a sustainability issue for a millennium or ten, based upon the convenience of one species for one generation. I find that a very morally daunting prospect.

[ clip to young Schneider ]
10:35... “What we are really doing is insulting our global environment at a faster rate than we are understanding it. And the best we can do in all honesty is say lookout there’s a change of potentially irreversible change at a global scale based upon the benefits of use of energy and it’s very tough for us to know whether those benefits of energy today are worth the potential risks of environmental change for our children.”
[ end clip ]

11:05... “How are we going to deal with this problem and others like it if it requires public understanding so they can send the right value signals to our representatives when their completely knocked off their pins by this cacophonous fraudulent debate were all parties are given equal credibility where they don’t deserve it. And we have got to take back the air waves in a way and make certain that what’s out there is more credible not just simply following some formulaic ballets.

"Thanks very much.”

Stephen finishes and leaves the stage. 
But he has left us a legacy to cherish, learn from and build upon.

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For further information visit the folks over at SkepticalScience.com:

CO2 is Plant Food

Renewable Energy kills jobs

CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple.

Is the Science Settled?

It's not Bad.

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Misinformation about Climate Science examined by Union of Concerned Scientists

2011-11-04T23:02:00.003-06:00

Since I'm spending more time trying to understand the "skeptics" mind and motives I feel it is appropriate to reprint the following from the Union of Concerned Scentists which is a thoughtful examination of the tactics used by the corporate funded climate change confusion campaign... aka the echo chamber.

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~ Union of Concerned Scientists ~

The Sound Science Initiative

Misinformation about Climate Science

Over the course of the 1990s climate change has come to be accepted as one of the biggest, most complex scientific and political challenges the world has ever faced. The issue is not amenable to simple solutions, and it is likely to be a pressing issue for the next century and beyond. The topic has a history spanning more than a century of scientific interest and research. The science has rapidly intensified over recent decades to build into a sound and expanding body of observational data and analytical experience. The global scientific community has coalesced under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—an independent, intergovernmental scientific body—to offer scientific advice to the world's governments.   . .

This advice of the scientific community has been systematically challenged by a number of vested interests, including some who fear a threat to the continued use of fossil fuels to power industrial development. These interests have exploited the intrinsic uncertainties of science to raise doubts as to the reality of climate change in the eyes of the public and the US Congress, effectively deflecting any US governmental action to mitigate climatic trends. Because there is ample room for disagreement in science, scientifically qualified skeptics have been included in the IPCC assessments. So, while the IPCC is not the only source of information, nor are its findings immutable, its reports do represent an extraordinary consensus not easily dismissed.  

In recent months, the public debate surrounding climate change has seen few incidences of truly egregious junk science. While skeptics remain both defiant and vocal (and well funded), few continue to publicly deny that greenhouse gases (GHGs) can produce global warming or that global temperature has risen in this century in some part due to human activities. This is largely due to the fact that climate scientists, led by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have become more vocal in informing policy makers and the public (primarily through the media) about sound science on the subject. In turn, many policy makers have accepted and acknowledged the scientific findings. Moreover, evidence of early warning signs of global warming are accumulating; climate models are improving; and formerly skeptical corporations are withdrawing their support from skeptics' organizations -- all of which together weakens the skeptics' untenable arguments.  

Yet the skeptics refuse to give up entirely. Instead of blunt denial about climate change and its underlying causes, skeptics are turning to more politic messages. Bolstered by sophisticated marketing, these new messages are ones to which the public will be more receptive. Thus, instead of "Global warming is not happening," skeptics now say "It will bring benefits" or "It won't ever be as bad as they say." They often selectively use economic studies to claim "We can't afford to deal with it." Further, the skeptics seem to be increasingly focused on policy makers, particularly the US Congress.  

Of particular concern to scientists is the fact that the new messages are often supported by papers selectively culled from the peer-reviewed literature and often twisted out of context. Some of these strategies are illustrated below, including recent examples to demonstrate that SSI scientists should remain vigilant to challenge this latest wave of inappropriate portrayal and use of science.  

Strategy 1 – DISCREDIT THE MESSAGE  

Despite the increasing scientific evidence that climate change is real and serious, skeptics continue to combat the basic scientific conclusions, especially those regarding the "discernible human influence" on the composition of the atmosphere, temperature trends, and climatic patterns. The three most commonly employed tactics to discredit the message include:

   A. Highlight the scientific uncertainties  

One of the frequent messages from the skeptics remains that global warming is not a "fact" but a much debated, unproved theory. While absolute certainty is expected in few areas of our lives, and most of us invest in insurances and securities even in cases where there is a very small chance of experiencing a negative event or effect, in the case of climate change, skeptics exaggerate scientific uncertainties at the expense of well established scientific findings. This strategy is aimed at making the public and policy makers believe that no action is warranted until climate change is a certainty. 

EXAMPLE - NAS report on reconciling differences in satellite and surface temperature trends.

One of the legitimate scientific debates in climate science revolves around the uncertainties and differencesin temperature measurements at the Earth's surface versus those from satellites and other upper-air platforms. This debate has been abused by skeptics to question the reality of global warming. A National Academy of Science expert panel, including very cautious climate scientists, was charged to review and assess the debate and state of knowledge. The resulting report was released on January 12, 2000 with a press release [1] from the Academy. Its leading message was the following:

"New Evidence Helps Reconcile Global Warming Discrepancies; Confirms That Earth's Surface Temperature Is Rising

Despite differences in temperature data, strong evidence exists to show that the warming of the Earth's surface is "undoubtedly real," and that surface temperatures in the past two decades have risen at a rate substantially greater than average for the past 100 years, says a new report by the National Research Council of the National Academies."

Compare this to a statement released by The Greening Earth Society—a skeptics organization funded by the Western Fuels Association—on the same day [2] which steered attention to the minor messages of the report and emphasized the scientific uncertainties:

"New findings from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) provide evidence that global climate model forecasts are unreliable indicators of future climate. … The report panel finds that global temperatures have not been changing in the manner that the state-of-the-art climate models predicted they would, a fact that lends support for the premise that the models should not be used in formulating policy that could potentially lead to great economic harm."

The skeptics' statement that "global temperatures have not been changing in the manner that state-of-the-art climate models predicted they would" is incorrect. The NAS panel explicitly stated that the "observed trends have been partially, but not fully reconciled with climate model simulations of human-induced climate change." Some of the scientific evidence in support of this "partial reconciliation" will appear in a forthcoming paper by Santer et al. in the journal Science [3].

B. Emphasize and take out of context selected findings to weaken the scientific conclusions  

Usually in conjunction with the tactic just described, skeptics also pick and choose from the more certain scientific findings to support their case. The common strategy is to take out of context the findings from peer-reviewed science articles to support non-scientific claims, i.e., opinion dressed up as scientific fact.

EXAMPLE - CO2 & Temperature Changes

A pair of papers [4,5] were published by authors from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Physics Institute of the University of Bern, Switzerland on global carbon cycle dynamics based on data gleaned from analysis of ice core records. The data showed that in the examined time period (the Holocene epoch from 1,000 – 11,000 years ago), temperature changed independently of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. In one example, during a glaciation event 120,000 years before the present, global temperature strongly declined while atmospheric CO2 remained roughly constant for several thousand years [4]. This is, of course, an inverse relationship compared to the global warming trend observed in this century and predicted for the next.

The results of the papers were selectively picked up by the World Climate Report (WCR), a publication sponsored by the Western Fuels coal consortium, to assert that current human emissions will not lead to global warming because the record showed that temperature change was independent of CO2 change.

The WCR article makes no mention of the facts that:

• In the 250,000 year ice core record presented in Fischer et al. [4], temperature and CO2 changes were actually quite parallel over the vast majority of the record. 

• Current human impacts on the carbon cycle are unprecedented. Indeed, the data show [5] that the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 over the past two centuries is two orders of magnitude greater than those observed in the Holocene. From 8,000 years before present to the mid-1800s, atmospheric carbon increased by 0.01 Gt C/yr; since then, it has increased by an average of 3 Gt C/yr. Thus, the unprecedented amount and rate of human carbon translocation to the atmosphere has no direct analogue in the ice core records and may well produce a stronger climatic response.

C. Making false claims for the policy implications of scientific findings

If the scientific evidence is just too compelling to deny, skeptics undermine the calls for action based on this convincing evidence by a variety of "yes, but…" arguments. Frequently, they portray policy options (e.g., the Kyoto Protocol) as draconian and completely out of proportion as a response to an allegedly still weak scientific signal. For that purpose, they commonly rely on economic studies that only focus on the costs or economic losses associated with greenhouse gas emission reductions and that systematically exclude the social and economic benefits of pollution reduction, increased energy efficiency, and investment in new technology. Alternatively, skeptics actively misconstrue climate scientists' findings and conclusions, claiming those scientists' public credibility in support of their vested interests.

EXAMPLE – Uncertainties about climate forcing

In October 1998, James Hansen et al. [6] published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences discussing the understanding of climate forcing which concluded with the statement saying, "the summary implication is a paradigm change for long term climate projections: uncertainties in climate forcings have supplanted global climate sensitivity as the predominant issue." While several of Hansen's scientific colleagues took exception with the article in replies and letters published in journals, the response of the George C. Marshall Institute was to claim the article supported their political aim of preventing the Kyoto Protocol from being ratified by the US Senate.

In a letter to President Clinton that was widely circulated on Capitol Hill, the Marshall Institute used selected out-of-context quotes from Hansen et al.'s paper to imply it showed that current projections of future global warming were so uncertain that mandated actions to reduce GHG emissions should be abandoned in favor of a program of more study of the problem. Dr. Hanson repeatedly refuted this statement publicly, saying that he had been misconstrued and misquoted by climate skeptics.

Strategy 2 – DISCREDIT THE MESSENGER   

Another set of tactics is commonly used when the scientific message can't be contradicted or silenced. These tactics attempt to undermine the credibility of the information source or messenger, and they can be quite damaging to the individuals involved.

A. Those eco-doomsters, alarmists, communists! –

Plain old name calling  Name calling is a standard tactic used in practically all skeptics pieces, hardly deserving explicit mention. It remains, however, a rather effective strategy, especially when used with a fairly uninformed public. Depending on the audience, to call someone "green" or "communist" or simply "hysteric" can win an audience over to the skeptics' side.

EXAMPLE – Responses to the Global Warming: Early Warning Signs map

Shortly after the release of a map showing early warning signs of global warming which was produced by UCS and Environmental Defense Fund scientists in collaboration with five other environmental organizations, David Mastio—a Detroit News reporter—published a highly critical op-ed in USA Today (December 16, 1999). He alleged that the map was based mainly on anecdotes "that purport to prove catastrophic global warming is on our doorstep," that it left out all counter-evidence, and that it was "as much a big lie as any created by a Soviet-era dictator."

While mentioning in passing the scientific basis of the map, he did not acknowledge the strict scientific criteria used to construct the map (showing fingerprints/observed trends and harbingers/events exemplifying projected impacts), nor the careful discussion of linkages between individual events and climate change. Fortunately, the allusion to "Soviet-era lies" backfired in that the name calling prompted strong counter-statements from the heads of the US and UK weather services and several high-profile US scientists. (See SSI member web page for additional details.)

B. Proclaim all guilty by association  

Another tactic falling under this category has been used before but is likely to become even more prevalent in the coming year—namely to make climate change a partisan issue and to use it against Democratic candidates, especially Vice President Al Gore.

EXAMPLE – The Anti-Gore campaign

The Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) posted an article by Jonathan Rauch (originally published as "Gore in the balance," in The National Journal, September 18, 1999), that begins with this paragraph:

"Every politician -— at least every politician worth voting for -— harbors something embarrassing in his past, something that raises questions about his suitability for the presidency. For Texas Gov. George W. Bush, that something is the suspected, and not denied, use of cocaine or some other illegal drug, probably more than 20 years ago. For Vice President Al Gore, the something is Earth in the Balance, his apocalyptic 1992 book on the environment. ...It elevates hysteria to a virtue and regards doubt as a disease. ...Hysterics don't belong in the Oval Office, or anywhere near it."

Shortly thereafter, skeptics frontrunner S. Fred Singer stated in a scathing article ("The Global Warming Orthodoxy on Attack," The Washington Times, October 4, 1999):

"Global warming has become an article of faith for many, with its own theology and orthodoxy. It even has its own 'bible,' Al Gore's confession of faith 'Earth in the Balance.' Its believers are quite fearful of any scientific dissent that threatens their deeply held beliefs."

Portraying climate skeptics as victims silenced by such "orthodoxy," he denounced several reputable scientists for publicly speaking out against junk science.

Strategy 3 – DISCREDIT THE PROCESS  

Yet another version of undermining both the science and the policy responses to climate change is to discredit the processes through which results are achieved. Claiming the moral high ground on due (open, democratic) process, the skeptics' primary targets are those instances where they claim there is a lack of transparency.

EXAMPLE - The IPCC Second Assessment Chapter 8 Controversy

Chapter 8 of the IPCC's Second Assessment Report (SAR) addressed the "Detection of climate change and attribution of causes" [7], obviously one of the most politically-sensitive chapters of the report. From this chapter comes one of the most critical findings of the SAR, namely that "the observed trend in global mean temperature over the past 100 years is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin" and that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate."

The chapter's lead author, Dr. Ben Santer, was accused by skeptics to have corrupted the standard peer review process by making unauthorized changes to the chapter after its acceptance by the IPCC at a key plenary Meeting in Madrid in November 1995. Further, it was alleged that these changes had been made for political rather than scientific purposes, that the bottom-line conclusion had been altered, and that the chapter had been "cleansed" of all discussion of scientific uncertainties.

These accusations were baseless and strongly refuted by the IPCC leadership who noted that the changes made to chapter 8 "followed the clear decision at Madrid to accept the draft chapter subject to its modification to improve its presentation, clarity and consistency in accordance with the views both of scientists and delegates expressed at length during the meeting" [8]. The modifications to the chapter did not change its bottom-line conclusion, nor were uncertainties suppressed. However, what was portrayed as a procedural foul play or cheating was used extensively for months after the report's publication to impugn the integrity of the lead author and to invalidate the findings.

EXAMPLE - The First US National Assessment of Climate Variability and Change

In the 1990 United States Global Change Research Act, Congress demanded that an assessment should be undertaken of the likely impacts of climate variability and change on the United States. This assessment process was begun in 1997, and a first assessment report is scheduled to be released in the spring or early summer of 2000. Because of the political controversy the findings of the assessment is likely to spawn in the Congress, Senator F.H. Murkowski (R-AK) demanded that the President's science advisor submit the assessment to rigorous "guidelines designed to ensure a transparent process, scientific peer review, and a good scientific result."

While the push for transparency is laudable, the suggested six guidelines were so stringent to be obstructionist. If followed strictly, they would have practically precluded the compilation of current and relevant scientific information. Fortunately, a procedural compromise has been found, submitting the assessment reports to reasonable technical expert, public, and governmental review. (Additional information on the National Assessment and likely skeptics attacks will be forthcoming from SSI shortly.)

Strategy 4 – BOLSTER THE COUNTER-MESSAGE  R

final set of tactics takes the two-pronged offensive of framing climate change in beneficial terms and to redirect blame for the emission of greenhouse gases.  

A. Put climate change (or at least the US and fossil fuel industry) in the best possible light   

Climate change is likely to produce some positive and some negative impacts—at least initially. Skeptics reliably trump with the beneficial side of greenhouse gas emissions—one of the positive impacts of climate change—and any scientific findings that suggest that the United States and its greenhouse gas emissions are not to be blamed for global changes in atmospheric concentrations of CO2.

EXAMPLE: The North American Carbon Sink

In an article published in October, 1998 in Science, Fan et al. [9] attempted to estimate how much carbon dioxide could be absorbed from the atmosphere by major global terrestrial carbon sinks. The paper modeled terrestrial carbon sinks on a continental scale using estimates based on atmospheric carbon measurements from 1988-1992. Carbon uptake estimates were best—due to the location of measuring stations—for the North American continent while those for Eurasia-North Africa and the land masses of the southern hemisphere had larger uncertainties attached. For North America, based on their model estimates, the authors concluded that carbon uptake exceeded annual emissions from fossil fuel burning and other human activities. Skeptics honed in on this singular result.

    •    In Forbes magazine, Peter Huber wrote in a column, entitled "America, the beautiful carbon sink" (April 5, 1999), "If the estimate is right, we don't owe the rest of the world a dime on (carbon emissions). They owe us." He went on to conclude that "We [Americans] recycle our carbon. If greenhouse gas is a problem at all, the rest of the world is the problem. America's the solution. Perhaps we could do even more. But the fact is, we're doing more than our share already." 

    •    Well known skeptic Patrick Michaels used the article to contradict IPCC projections of future atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in his World Climate Report, which was aggressively circulated to Congressional Offices. He wrote "If [vegetated land outside North America] behaved in a similar fashion there's little doubt—given these numbers—that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations projected in the future will be drastically reduced." He also cited comments by the American Petroleum Institute that the Fan et al. article "calls into question the scientific basis on which we're making these decisions [to mandate emissions reductions in the United States] when we don't still know if the United States is even emitting any carbon in the net."

Neither made any mention of the caveats Fan et al. included in their study nor that the article is one model study in a broader ongoing scientific debate on understanding and quantifying the global carbon cycle. Indeed, a more recent article in Science by Houghton et al. [10] rebutted their findings, showing that the net carbon flux related to US lands offset some 10 to 30% of this country's fossil fuel emissions. The scientific attempts to better define the magnitude of carbon sequestration by land vegetation and the oceans continues to date.  

In its worst excesses, the debate over carbon sequestration is taken to an idyllic extreme—especially by the Greening Earth Society—namely that CO2 emissions are a wonderful gift to the world's agricultural sector, allowing the world to become better able to produce food, to feed the growing population, and thus to eradicate the plight of hunger.

While CO2 is an important plant fertilizer, this argument fails to acknowledge the growing number of scientific studies that examine the negative impacts of climate change on plant growth (e.g., water stress and risk of drought, increased vulnerability to insect pests and pathogens, increased risk of wildfire) [11].  

B. Sign-on petitions  

With ample financial support from industry and donors, skeptics have launched several campaigns to summon support for their positions from people with or without a Ph.D. behind their names. These supporters are not necessarily experts in the atmospheric and related sciences, nor do they necessarily pursue an active research agenda on climate change issues. Occasionally, skeptics have co-opted the expertise of active climate scientists involved in legitimate scientific debates in order to pursue research that supports a conservative political agenda.  

Sign-on petitions themselves are non-scientific statements, but they use select scientific findings, the power of credentials of individuals, or simply the generic credibility of science to support certain value positions.

EXAMPLE - The Oregon Petition, The Leipzig Declaration, and other position statements

    •    In 1998, the Anti-Global Warming Petition of the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine inundated US scientists' mailboxes. Contrary to the petition's misleading claims, there already was a growing consensus in the world's scientific community that the threat of global warming is real and any further delay in action would be imprudent and potentially very costly.

The Oregon Petition spawned tremendous controversy through a deceptive scientific article formatted to look like the an article in the NAS journal. In the accompanying letter, former NAS chair Frederick Seitz urged scientists to sign the petition opposing US Senate ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. The overall effect of these two things—the faux journal article and Seitz' former association—was to give the impression that the NAS backed this project. The NAS felt compelled to publicly distance itself from this effort, and reaffirmed its assessment that global warming was real. 

    •    Prior to that, in 1997, another position statement signed by scientists—the so-called Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change—was circulated in Europe and the United States. According to the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), the statement is based on two International Symposia on the Greenhouse Controversy held in 1995 and 1997 in Germany. It is almost identical in wording to a 1992 "Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming."

There is also substantial overlap of the signatories of both statements. The Leipzig Declaration is an anti-Kyoto manifesto that uses scientific uncertainties to undermine any need for emission reduction policies. Signatories aligned themselves with the (value) position that the Kyoto Protocol is unfair to industrialized countries, and emission reductions would be prohibitively expensive and thus damaging to the economy. This position neglects differential historical responsibilities, economic capabilities and opportunities, and the severity of regional impacts. Moreover, both US governmental and independent economic studies have shown that the costs of emission reductions are far lower than the skeptics claim [12]. 

C. Putting on a scientific front  

In an attempt to bank on the credibility science generally enjoys and to fight off accusations of making unscientific, biased claims, skeptics also pursue the idea "if you can't beat them, join them"—if only in appearance.

EXAMPLE: The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change

    •    This pseudo-scientific research center located in Tempe, AZ is currently headed up by Craig D. and Keith E. Idso, who are also involved with the Greening Earth Society. In a position paper on global warming [13], the two authors (the only listed staff of the Center) state, "There is little doubt the air's CO2 concentration has risen significantly since the inception of the Industrial Revolution; and there are few who do not attribute the CO2 increase to the increase in humanity's use of fossil fuels. There is also little doubt that the earth has warmed slightly over the same period; but there is no compelling reason to believe that the rise in temperature was caused by the rise in CO2.

Furthermore it is highly unlikely that future increases in the air's CO2 content will produce any global warming; for there are numerous problems with the popular hypothesis that links the two phenomena." The authors then go on to flesh out these "problems" with scientific jargon, criticizing unscientific interpretations, and debunking claims never made by serious climate scientists.

The "scientific" positions held by Center staff are not subjected to peer-review, and the Center's Scientific Advisors are mostly retired scientists without past or current research in climate-related sciences. It is not clear whether the CO2 Center is actually a separate entity from the Greening Earth Society.

D. The proliferation of skeptics organizations

The idea here is to put up as many fronts as possible to give the impression of a large group of studies from diverse sources. Among their typical "findings" are that they cannot find any evidence of global change being at least in part driven by fossil fuel emissions.

EXAMPLE - Inundation of Capitol Hill with skeptics messages

    •    The World Climate Report has often been at the center of science-skeptics controversies. In fact, it very much illustrates the new tactics being employed by climate skeptics. The focused target is now Congress, while undermining public opinion on the veracity of global climate change has become less important for now.

Thus, the WCR is all but unknown to the general public but is aggressively circulated on Capitol Hill to Congressional offices. The publication is not peer-reviewed, but it is slickly published with short, pithy articles intended to be read by harried Congressional staff who may not have the time or expertise to be over-critical in their read. However, the WCR is merely one of the many facets of the campaign to discredit the evidence of global climate change organized by the Western Fuels Association, a coal producers consortium. Other spin-offs already mentioned include the Greening Earth Society and the SEPP.

In addition, other conservative research institutes and think tanks (e.g., the Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the George Marshall Institute) adopt and/or chime in on many of the skeptics' messages [14], facilitated by the fact that many of the major spokespersons for the skeptics are associates or fellows of one or more of these institutes, including several international organizations (e.g., the European Science & Environment Forum).  

The Response by Scientists

The examples of the new and/or re-invented tactics are but a few of the continuing efforts of climate skeptics and some fossil fuel interests to undermine policy action to reduce GHG emissions. They make it clear that scientists must remain vigilant to monitor for misleading and misrepresented information about climate change and be prepared to respond directly to policy makers and the media.  

Unfortunately, scientific information is misused by people with all kinds of interests: sometimes it is purposefully misconstrued to support the interests of the status quo, sometimes it is stretched beyond what science can sincerely support to push for valuable policy changes, and sometimes it is simply misused without ill intent but out of ignorance. Scientists are uniquely positioned with their extensive training and experience in the scientific methods to tease apart for policy makers, the media, and the larger public where a scientific argument ends and a value judgement begins.  

SSI aims to identify prominent situations in which scientists can do just that: clarify and translate the true state of the science so that the larger public and decision makers can appropriately interpret the findings and focus the political process on a debate over values, means and ends, rather than manufactured "facts."  Besides lending their expertise to this crucial task at the national level, SSI members can also monitor for such opportunities in their communities and local media. UCS monitors the policy scene in Washington, DC, only some of the state-level policy developments, and the largest national newspapers.

We are always interested, however, to hear of local developments and local media coverage that we cannot monitor regularly, and encourage SSI members to inform us of their responses. To be pro-active, SSI members may use the next few opportunities (e.g., the appearance of junk science in the local paper) to contact their newspaper reporter and let them know of their availability as credible expert resources on climate issues and to establish a good working relationship.  

Further, informed scientists need to encourage their colleagues to become active in lending their expertise to educating the public and policy makers. There are many efforts and opportunities to keep policy makers and the public informed about what research results are truly telling us about global change and how it may affect our society. Until climate change mitigation actions are well underway in this coming decade, scientists will need to remain active in debunking junk science and in combating the misuse of peer-reviewed science.

References
    1.    National Academy of Sciences (2000) "Global Warming 'Undoubtedly Real'". Press Release of January 12. NAS: Washington, DC. Available at http://www.nas.edu/ 
    2.    The Greening Earth Society (2000) "Virtual Climate Alert #3." (January 12). Available at http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/Articles/2000/vca3.htm 
    3.    Santer, B.D. et al. (2000). Interpreting differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposhere. Science (forthcoming). 
    4.    H. Fischer et al. (1999) "Ice Core Records of Atmospheric CO2 Around the Last Three Glacial Terminations." Science, vol. 283, pp.1712-1714. 
    5.    Indermuhle et al. (1999) "Holocene carbon-cycle dynamics based on CO2 trapped in ice at Taylor Dome, Antarctica" Nature, vol. 398, pp. 121-126. 
    6.    J. Hansen et al. (1998) "Climate forcings in the industrial era." PNASUS, vol. 95, issue 22, pp. 12753-12758. See abstract at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/22/12753 . 
    7.    Santer, B.D. et al. (1996) "Detection of climate change and attribution of causes" In: Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group I to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change," pp.407-443, ed. J.T. Houghton et al. New York: Cambridge University Press. 
    8.    Letter by Bert Bolin, Sir John Houghton, and Luiz Gylvan Meira Filho, published in the Wall Street Journal on July 23rd, 1996. 
    9.    S. Fan et al. (1998) "A Large Terrestrial Carbon Sink in North America Implied by Atmospheric and Oceanic Carbon Dioxide Data and Models" Science, vol. 282, pp. 442 – 446. 
    10.    R. A. Houghton et al. (1999) "The US carbon budget: Contributions from land-use change." Science, vol. 285, pp. 574 – 578. 
    11.    See Adams, Richard M., Brian H. Hurd, and John Reilly (1999). A review of impacts to U.S. agricultural resources. Report prepared for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Arlington, VA. Reilly, John et al. (1996). Agriculture in a changing climate: Impacts and adaptation. In: Climate change 1995: Impacts, adaptations and mitigation of climate change: Scientific-technical analyses. Contributions of Working Group II to the Second Assessment Report of the IPCC, pp. 427-467. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rosenzweig, Cynthia and Martin L. Parry (1994). Potential impact of climate change on world food supply. Nature, vol. 367 (13 January), pp. 133-138. 
    12.    Union of Concerned Scientists and Tellus Institute (1998). A small price to pay: US action to curb global warming is feasible and affordable. Union of Concerned Scientists, Boston, MA. The review covers three non-US and three US studies and concludes that the US can make significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions with overall economic savings or at a modest cost. (See http://www.ucsusa.org for more information on this report.) 
    13.    Idso, Craig D. and Keith E. Idso (2000) "Carbon dioxide and global warming: Where we stand on the issue." Tempe, AZ. Available at http://www.co2science.org/about/position.htm . 
    14.    See a recent articles on the importance of think tanks as mouthpieces for skeptics: "Think tanks: Corporations' quiet weapon; nonprofits' studies, lobbying advance big business causes," The Washington Post, January 29, 2000, by Dan Morgan.

February, 2000   This report may not be reprinted or posted to electronic networks without permission and acknowledgement.

Acknowledgements

This information update was prepared by Susanne Moser and Darren Goetze, UCS Staff scientists. The document was reviewed by John Holdren, George Woodwell, Benjamin Santer, Peter Frumhoff, and David Cash.

{This notice was sent to SSI network members in February 2000.}

What's Up With That Watts Spinning Svante Björck's Climate Study ?

2011-10-21T22:06:00.009-06:00

I've been getting irritated at the froth flowing from the notorious Watts Up With That website to the point that it's worth sharing another censored post to their website. . .

WUWT's most recent slap in the face is the flow of hostile commentary toward a paper published by Svante Björck, a climate researcher at Lund University in Sweden.

It is an interesting study in how a paper can be attacked simply by feeling hostile to it's conclusions, while totally avoiding a serious look at the content of said study.

I say this because the opening post by Watts does nothing to examine the study, nor to clearly delineate his objections. Instead, it reminded me more of tossing meat out to a pack of hungry dogs, than any sober attempt at trying to learn about what's happening within our planet's climate.

I posted the following at his website (October 21, at about 9pm).

Basically it is a selection of reader quotes, that highlight the dearth of good-faith intellectual curiosity displayed among the WUWT crowd.
Along with my skeptical comments.

Having WUWT's censors delete it is another example of WUWT managed misinformation fest, focused on making political mischief rather than any exercise in honest intellectual curiosity and a sincere desire to learn about the science and evidence of climatology.

But, if they delete it there, I can always post it here.

PS, Wuwt'ers: One Directional Skepticism Equals Denial . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following was posted, then deleted from the WUWT thread: "The Durban ramp-up begins – now the Earth only warms by hemispheres, and not simultaneously – until now"
~ ~ ~

PeterB says: October 21, 2011 at 9:05 am

This would seem to contradict the recent studies which show that the medieval warm period was simultaneous in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Does the author give any basis or explanation for this contradiction?
~ ~ ~
What recent studies?
=================

Kipp C says: October 21, 2011 at 9:05 am
Dear Dr. Watts:
I very much enjoy your analyses. Please keep up the terrific work.
~ ~ ~
What Analyses?
=================

Juraj V. says: October 21, 2011 at 9:42 am
Eat this, Svante: http://www.climate4you.com/images/MSU%20UAH%20ArcticAndAntarctic%20MonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
~ ~ ~
What is that graph supposed to prove? Can you explain?
=================

P.F. says: October 21, 2011 at 9:43 am
Only back 20k? There are plenty of good studies on the Eemian Interglacial.
~ ~ ~
Such as? . . .
Why don’t you folks take the trouble to share these phantom studies?
You know so they can be looked at with some healthy skepticism!
=================

James G says: October 21, 2011 at 9:47 am
Related: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/335168/title/Columbus_blamed_for_Little_Ice_Age
~ ~ ~
Very interesting story, here’s one quote from the article:
“Tying together many different lines of evidence, Nevle estimated how much carbon all those new trees would have consumed. He says it was enough to account for most or all of the sudden drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide recorded in Antarctic ice during the 16th and 17th centuries. Such a depletion of a key greenhouse gas may have helped augment Europe’s so-called Little Ice Age, centuries of cooler temperatures that followed the Middle Ages, Nevle's team has argued.”~ ~ ~

But, I wonder what it has to do the above post? Can you explain?
=================

pat says: October 21, 2011 at 9:51 am
I am fairly certain I read 3 studies recently . . .
~ ~ ~
And what the heck good does that do anyone?
Jeez, don’t you folks call yourselves “skeptics”
Where’s The Beef?
=================

higley7 says: October 21, 2011 at 10:13 am
I don’t care if the hemispheres do the square dance, CO2 still does not drive climate and cannot cause the climate swings he is describing. He still subscribes to the hidden need to find a major role for CO2 while ignoring the other much larger climate influences.
~ ~ ~
got anything to support your grand assertions? . . . besides more assertions, how about some real scientific studies?

What about the facts regarding ten key climate indicators -
Why doesn't any of that stuff register with you folks?
=================

paddylol says: October 21, 2011 at 10:38 am
Should not Dr Bjorck have noted and refuted contrary research showing the events such as the RWP, MWP and LIA occurred simultaneously in both hemispheres?
~ ~ ~
Do you have a listing to offer or is it all virtual knowledge?
=================

philip B says: October 21, 2011 at 12:52 pm
SH sea ice shows an increasing trend which has accelerated over the last several years. This is damming evidence that whatever is causing climate change, it isn’t well mixed GHGs.
~ ~ ~
Got anything besides your opinion to offer?
How about doing a little good-faith learning? Here’s an interesting link to an article that does a nice job of explaining some of these details you folks seem to willfully ignore:
.......
Arctic Ice Volume is diminishing even more rapidly than Area
Posted on 21 October 2011 by Peter Hogarth
Including about sixty links to scientific papers so please don’t dismiss it with vacuous insults.
=================

Lars P. says:
October 21, 2011 at 2:09 pm
The south must be having a different sun: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8517
~ ~ ~
So what does that graph and silly one paragraph rant explain?
Can you explain?

~~~~~~~

Vail Valley Voices: Dr. Martin Hertzberg disputes evidence for global warming

2011-10-04T15:43:00.003-06:00

I've been quite busy and distracted this past month, haven't written anything or even had a chance to keep up on developments.

Sunday I finally had a break and did some catching up and what a surprise to find my old pal Dr. Martin Hertzberg ~ the explosives, not climate expert ~ is in the news. I know Martin because we were both delegates to the 2008 Colorado Democratic Convention where I circulated my little "Memes Courier."

After reading it Martin contacted me, voicing support for my opposition to the Village at Wolf Creek boondoggle, but taking me to task for my summation of the Manmade Global Warming situation.

He initiated a short "educational" correspondence, expecting me to adopt all of his opinions without review. When I replied with thoughtful, polite, science focused objections to his assertions he became, shall we say touchy, then breaking off all communication. I'll admit I thought it was mighty petty of him and indicative of the profound hollowness that seems part and parcel of the whole "denialist" movement. Specially considering Martin initiated our correspondence.

The memory of Martin's disingenuous approach, as highlighted by his running and hiding from simple science based considerations still raises my hackles. What are we to make of someone who makes very certain statements, while ridiculing the pros... but then refuses to reply to serious questions regarding flaws in his oh so certain broadcasting?

Thus I share the following... as another example of the deceit infused "global warming denial community."
Along with an open question: Dr. Hertzberg if your claims are real why won't you stand up and defend them in a serious polite discuss of facts and observations rather than the rhetorical emotionalizing displayed in your opinion pieces?

The text of his letter can be found at the Vail Daily:
Vail Valley Voices: Researcher disputes evidence for global warming
Martin Hertzberg
... and in the following post where I've taken the liberty of annotating Dr. Hertzberg's dubious presentation with comments and links to authoritative information sources.

In this posting I want to share something I’ve bootlegged from WottsUpWithThat
along with Dr. Michael Mann’s response to Hertzberg’s slanderous lies.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

From: WottsUpWithThat
2011/10/02
Thanks to Michael Mann’s response, a newspaper censors a letter to the editor ex post facto

“Thanks to Michael Mann’s response, a newspaper censors a letter to the editor ex post facto“ (2011-10-02). Anthony Watts tells us that Michael Mann, lead bully of “the Team”, has forced the proud Vail Daily to withdraw a Sept. 30th, 2011 Letter to the Editor from the skeptical mind of Martin Hertzberg, titled Vail Valley Voices: Researcher disputes evidence for global warming.

Could it be that Dr. Mann found Hertzberg’s analysis so embarrassingly accurate that he had to use his secret power connections to eradicate the hated thing? Hmm. No. Dr. Mann never made any such request.

What did he do? He wrote a response on Oct. 1st, 2011 that effectively started with this:

“It’s hard to imagine anyone packing more lies and distortions into a single commentary.”

Someone at the Vail Daily, whose brain cells happened to brush up against each other, had a look and realized that Dr. Mann was right. Really, really, right. The issue suddenly wasn’t about the noble rights of the upstanding Martin Hertzberg, self-identified ”long-time denier of human-caused global warming”, to tell whopping great malicious lies. It was about whether the Vail Voice was legally exposed for carelessly spreading his false and defamatory statements. They chose to put as much distance as possible between themselves and what was clearly a piece of crap.

Anthony can’t even keep his indignation straight. He starts off implying that the Vail Daily is a noble vehicle for free speech, but turns on them with a series of nitpicking remarks intended to impugn their professionalism (does Dr. Mann live in Vail? I think not! Why the obsequious one day turnaround for Mann’s response? Why did the paper call Hertzberg a “denier”? Oh, that’s his self-description. Etc).

After all the howling it seems that the Vail Daily has re-posted the offending Letter to the Editor, apparently with some of the stupider things removed. What do we learn about Martin Hertzberg? He’s a big fan of the deceptive Oregon Petition. He knows that the greenhouse effect is “fear[ ]mongering hysteria… devoid of physical reality.” He considers anthropogenic CO2 emissions “about as significant as a few farts in a hurricane.” He’s heard of the Medieval Warm Period. He knows that diplomats and bureaucrats “have huge egos and a lust for power.” Finally, he’s a co-author of the idiotic Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory, so he’s already had his ass kicked repeatedly on the same topics. I think Martin’s journey to the dustbin of history will be a short one.

In my opinion it’s better to leave these things “up” as originally posted and insert a correction at the start so they are in legitimate context and not left as unchallenged assertions. That way Anthony’s link to the Wikipedia entry for freedom of speech need not be indignantly displayed. I think he should have, uh, censored the sentence “In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, such as on libel, slander, obscenity, incitement to commit a crime, etc.” though, because that’s the exact issue here.

P.S. Anthony, I think your Latin’s a bit over-enthusiastic. Also the Sherlock Holmes-by-screen-capture schtick is wearing thin, especially in light of your coy pretense of ignorance about Martin Hertzberg’s denialist contributions. Don’t bury the lede.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Here is Michael Mann's letter to the Vail Valley Voice Editor:

Vail Valley Voices: Global warming denier's claims are falsehoods
Michael E. Mann
Vail, CO, Colorado

~ ~ ~
An individual named Martin Hertzberg did a grave disservice to your readers by making false and defamatory statements about me and my climate scientist colleagues in his recent commentary in your paper.

It's hard to imagine anyone packing more lies and distortions into a single commentary. Mr. Hertzberg uses libelous language in characterizing the so-called “hockey stick” -- work of my own published more than a decade ago showing that recent warming is unusual over at least the past 1,000 years -- as “fraudulent,” and claiming that it “it was fabricated from carefully selected tree-ring measurements with a phony computer program.”

These are just lies, regurgitation of dishonest smears that have been manufactured by fossil fuel industry-funded climate change deniers, and those who do their bidding by lying to the public about the science.

The highest scientific body in the nation, the National Academy of Sciences affirmed my research findings in an exhaustive independent review published in June 2006 (see e.g. “Science Panel Backs Study on Warming Climate,” New York Times, June 22, 2006, among many others).

Dozens of independent groups of scientists have independently reproduced and confirmed our findings, and more recent work by several groups shows that recent warmth is unusual over an even longer time frame.

Mr. Hertzberg then continues the smear by lying again about my work, claiming that “when those same tree-ring data actually showed a decline in temperature for the past several decades, Mann and his co-authors simply ‘hid the decline' by grafting direct measurements (inadequately corrected for the urban heat island and other effects) to his flat tree-ring line.”

That is, once again, a string of lies tied together. This statement falsely equates my work, which was not based on tree rings but rather a diverse network of different types of “proxy” climate data, with tree-ring work by an entirely different scientist, Keith Briffa of the University of East Anglia.

And it is is a highly dishonest characterization of his Briffa's work, as well, since the “decline” was a well-known problem with those particular data that Briffa was the first to describe and attempt to deal with, in the scientific literature.

Mr. Hertzberg's lies are pernicious. Their intent appears to be to do convince you that there is no harm in our continued unfettered release of carbon into the atmosphere.

It is not only us, but our children and grandchildren who will suffer the consequences of devastating changes in our environment in the years and decades to come if we listen to charlatans like Mr. Hertzberg.

Readers interested in the truth behind the science, rather than the falsehoods and smears perpetuated by people like Mr. Hertzberg, should consult the scientist-run website www.realclimate.org and www.skepticalscience.com, or scientifically-based books on the topic like my “Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming.”

Michael E. Mann is a professor in the Department of Meterology at Penn State University and director of Penn State Earth System Science Center.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Martin Hertzberg... a denialist in action

2011-10-02T22:44:00.014-06:00

This is a sequel to the previous post

Containing the annotated copy of Martin Hertzberg's 9/30/11 letter to the Vail Daily including links to authoritative sources that give clear explanations regarding the state of our knowledge,
information that is in stark contrast to Dr. Hertzberg's profound misrepresentation.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hertzberg's text is in purple
my comments are in black
and links are in blue
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Vail Valley Voices:
More hot air than science in global-warming theory

Martin Hertzberg

Vail, CO, Colorado

“Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the handmaiden of truth” — Robert Weston.

{“One directional skepticism equals denial” - CC}  

Since I am a long-time denier of human-caused global warming and have been described as an “inaccurate” and “irresponsible” “fool” by Scott Glasser's commentary in Monday's Vail Daily, I feel compelled to respond.

~ ~ ~
{These claims simply aren’t supported by a reading of Scott Glasser’s two letters, here and here. Scott never referred to Hertzberg, nor did he do any name calling as Martin implies, as for the title given to the one letter, Martin knows this is usually done by the editor of the newspaper, not the writer.

The closest Scott gets is:

“It is intellectually dishonest and dangerous to ignore science's warnings based on inaccurate and partially understood reporting by partial non-scientists and politically motivated commentators.

Rather than argue here in the editorials, I implore any interested reader to take time and visit the vast and varied relevant scientific websites.”}

~ ~ ~   

I am a research scientist who also served as a meteorologist for the U.S. Navy. I am also a lifelong progressive Democrat.   For the 25 years that I have been studying the theory that human emission of carbon dioxide is causing global warming and climate change, it has never ceased to amaze me how many otherwise intelligent people, including our president, have been taken in by that scam.

~ ~ ~
{How many detailed peer-reviewed studies has Hertzberg published explaining exactly why thousands of serious climatologists and their detailed studies are wrong?
I’m curious because what Hertzberg presents here is ideology driven politicized opining and not a review of the science.

Incidentally, below is a list of sources that clearly explain what scientists have learned, what they know and where gaps remain:

The Discovery of Global Warming

American Institute of Physics

Global Warming: Frequently Asked Questions

NOAA ~ National Climatic Data Center

NASA ~ Climate change: How do we know?

Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming

UCAR ~ Understanding Climate Change ~ A global warming primer }
~ ~ ~

There is a simple way to tell the difference between scientists and propagandists. If scientists have a theory, they search diligently for data that might actually contradict their theory so that they test it rigorously or refine it. If propagandists have a theory, they carefully select only the data that might agree with their theory and dutifully ignore any data that might contradict it.

~ ~ ~
{This is an excellent description of Dr. Hertzberg’s selective rhetorical rant, which you’ll notice is devoid of any good faith attempt to examine or explain the actual evidence.}
~ ~ ~  

The anecdotal drivel cited in the Glasser article regarding atmospheric carbon dioxide, average global temperatures, ice area coverage and rate of sea-level rise was carefully cherry picked or is totally false.

~ ~ ~
{This Herztberg calls drivel:

“Also, from NASA:
* Carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas, now at 391 ppm, highest concentration in 650,000 years, and has accelerated tremendously since 1950 when it was only 280 (look at the graph).
* Global temperature has increased an average of 1.5 F since 1860.
* Arctic sea ice at a minimum in 2007, losing ice on average at 11.5 percent per decade.
* Sea level has risen 4-8 inches over the past century, rising 3.27mm per year.
* Greenland ice loss doubled between 1995 and 2005.
* Antarctic sea ice losing 24 cubic miles of ice per year since 2002.”

Notice Hertzberg doesn’t address Glasser’s points, merely calling it nonsense and moving on expecting us to accept his opinion.

Speaking of shrinking cryosphere, here’s the latest on the Arctic
PIOMAS September 2011 (volume record lower still)}
~ ~ ~

For the totality of the available data for the past several decades, go to www.climate4you.com. The data show nothing remarkable — just the normal variability in all those weather-related parameters.

~ ~ ~
{It’s nonsensical to claim that climate4you contains “the totality of the available data.”
Dr. Humlum’s blog is an interesting mix of fact and manipulation. For more details here are a couple interesting articles explaining some of climate4you’s misleading interpretation of data.

Crux of a Core, Part 3... Dr. Ole Humlum

Humlum is at it again }
~ ~ ~  

Knowledgeable scientists, including the more than 30,000 such as myself who have signed the Oregon Petition (a), know that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide do not correlate with human emission of carbon dioxide(b), that human emission is a trivial fraction of sources and sinks of carbon dioxide(c), that the oceans contain about 50 times more dissolved carbon dioxide than is present in the atmosphere(d), that recycling of carbon dioxide from the tropical oceans where it is emitted to the arctic oceans where it is absorbed is orders of magnitude more significant than human emissions(e), and that the carbonate-bicarbonate buffer in the oceans makes their acidity (actually their alkaline pH) virtually insensitive to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (f).  

~ ~ ~
{Invoking the Oregon Petition is a red flag in itself considering what a fraud that project turned out to be.
Starting with the shady character of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine itself,
to Frederick Seitz’s cover opinion dressed up in the form of a well crafted NAS study,
to the unqualified nature of it’s ideology driven signees.

In fact the fraud prompted the National Academy of Sciences to release a statement April 20, 1998:

"The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this (Oregon) petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal."[15]

Here’ are a couple interesting videos reviewing OISM by Peter Sinclair

The Great Petition Fraud -- Mirror

32000 Scientists

(a) Climate Change: A Consensus Among Scientists? ~ December 23, 2009

For another look at the numbers and signees

(b) Comparing CO2 emissions to CO2 levels

(c) Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing ?

Time-lapse history of human global CO2 emissions

(d) not sure what the point is, but here’s some interesting information...
Chapter 4: Global Energy Transfer, Atmosphere and Ocean Circulation, Climate

(e) this ignores that human emissions are above and beyond the natural flux...
The Carbon Cycle and Earth's Climate

(g) The Acid Ocean – the Other Problem with CO2 Emission

NASA Educational Workshop ~ SeaWiFS: Ocean Chemistry
The Basics of Ocean Chemistry: Carbon, Circulation, and Critters }
~ ~ ~

The data for the glacial coolings and interglacial warmings for the past 500,000 years always show that temperature changes precede atmospheric carbon-dioxide changes by about 1,000 years (a). That indicates that temperature changes are driving carbon-dioxide changes and not the reverse as the Gore-Hansen-IPCC clique claims (b). As oceans warm for whatever reason, they emit carbon dioxide, and as they cool they absorb carbon dioxide (c).

~ ~ ~
(a) Why does Hertzberg ignore the understanding behind those historic trends or why those events do not relate to current society injected GHG’s effect. Dr. Richard Alley does a great job of explaining the current understanding in this lecture:
“The Biggest Control Knob ~ Carbon Dioxide in Earth’s Climate History”

(b) It indicates no such thing and why all those cheap shots?

(c) Notice Hertzberg does nothing to explain what this has to do with the tremendous amounts of society produced GHGs being injected into the atmosphere above and beyond the natural background flux.
~ ~ ~  

The carbon-dioxide “greenhouse effect” argument on which the fearmongering hysteria is based is actually devoid of physical reality.(a) The notion that the colder atmosphere above can reradiate its absorbed infrared energy to heat the warmer earth below violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.(b) For details, see “Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory,” co-authored by myself and several other scientists, which was published earlier this year by Stairway Press.

~ ~ ~
(a) More insults rather than presenting facts, but what’s a denier to do when the facts dispute their ideologically driven preconceptions?

(b) The Second Law, Radiative Transfer, and Global Warming

The greenhouse effect and the 2nd law of thermodynamics }
~ ~ ~

In any case, if one compares the effect of water in all of its forms (polar ice, snow cover, oceans, clouds, water vapor in the atmosphere) with that of human emission of carbon dioxide, the carbon-dioxide emission is about as significant as a few farts in a hurricane.

~ ~ ~
{What’s a statement like this supposed to mean? Except perhaps an attempt at emotionalizing the question, rather than examining it with intellectual integrity.

Why does Hertzberg ignore the CO2 water vapor connection?

Explaining how the water vapor greenhouse effect works }
~ ~ ~  

Glasser, who calls me a fool (a), really tips his hand by defending the notoriously fraudulent “hockey stick” curve of Professor Mann(b). That curve has the shape of a hockey stick, flat for the past 1,000 years with a sharp rise during the past few decades(c). It was fabricated from carefully selected tree-ring measurements with a phony computer program(d).

~ ~ ~
(a) No he doesn’t! Look for yourself:
here and here

It’s as big a lie as his next statements.

(b) Is the hockey stick broken?

Hockey stick replaced with a hockey team

(c) No it isn’t! See the graph for yourself

(d) Nonsense!
A Review of Michael Mann's Exoneration

NAS hockey stick report }
~ ~ ~

Every knowledgeable climatologist knows that tree rings are unreliable proxies for temperature because they are also sensitive to moisture, sunlight, pests, competition from adjacent trees, etc. (a). Furthermore, when those same tree-ring data actually showed a decline in temperature for the past several decades, Mann and his co-authors simply “hid the decline” by grafting direct measurements (inadequately corrected for the urban heat island and other effects) to his flat tree-ring line(b).

~ ~ ~
(a) More nonsense, see
Keith Briffa & Tim Osborn: Tree-ring data

NOAA Paleoclimatology ~ Tree Ring

(b) For the rest of the story see:
Why climatologists used the tree-ring data ‘trick’

Clearing up misconceptions regarding 'hide the decline'

Tree-ring proxies and the divergence problem
~ ~ ~

Knowledgeable climatologists knew that the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings settled Greenland(a) and grapes grew in northern England(b), was much warmer than today and that its presence in all regions of the world was overwhelming(c). Similarly for the Roman Warm Period that preceded it and for a whole series of natural warmings and coolings until one gets back to the big one: the interglacial cooling of about 20,000 years ago (d).

~ ~ ~
{(a) "The Medieval Warming Crock"

(b) English vineyards again…

(c) More claims that aren’t supported with any facts.
Medieval Warm Period not so random

(d) No supporting data, nor mention that climatologists do understand the various drivers of climate and how they behaved during various periods.

Review of Paleoclimates. Understanding climate change past and present, by Thomas M. Cronin (2010). New York: Columbia University Press. 441 pp. ISBN 978-0-231-14494-0.}
~ ~ ~  

And that all happened without any significant human emission of carbon dioxide.

~ ~ ~
{No climatologist claims that past climate didn’t change!

In fact they have studied past change in excruciating detail and have developed a very self consistent and evidence backed understanding of the various factors that influenced these early changes to a reasonably high degree of accuracy.

Dr Hertzberg also neglects to mention that the known driving factors of those past climate changes are not major players in today’s transitioning climate.

These days we have a new and historically unique element in the mix, that is society produced greenhouse gases on the order of two and a half gigatons every month, over and above the background flux}
~ ~ ~

The conclusions being promulgated by the scientifically illiterate diplomats who control the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are fraudulent concoctions that have already been denounced by many of its scientific members.

~ ~ ~
{Hertzberg again ignores the supposed topic only to reduce himself to this schoolyard bully name calling? Traditionally though it is the class idiot who is the first one to call the teacher an idiot. Hertzberg thinks that simply by calling people names and insulting their intelligence he’s got the right to ignore the substance of their findings and reports. Shame on him.

Sad truth is that all the evidence in the world is worthless if one willfully ignores it!}
~ ~ ~  

Those diplomats, like the bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency, have huge egos and a lust for power. That is far more important to them than the triviality of scientific truth. Once committed to one side of such an issue, they will rarely admit that they have made a mistake. Once having invested their political capital and our economic resources to start the huge, massive inertia wheel turning, it takes too much courage, energy and loss of face to stop it.

~ ~ ~
{Again bully name calling, devoid of any substance or explanation, but we are only supposed to accept Hertzberg’s obvious prejudiced opinion as gospel?
And speaking of rampaging egos, it takes a lot of chutzpa to indict a whole field of dedicated full-time scientists.}  
~ ~ ~

That was the case with the war in Vietnam and currently with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

~ ~ ~
{Interestingly, it was the same group of people in “think tanks” and right wing activist organizations who pushed this country into those insane wars... who are today pushing the global warming is a hoax nonsense.
All dedicated to retaining the status quo and doing nothing about a “corporate free market plan” that has brought our nation and world to the brink of economic and well as environmental destruction.
And Hertzberg implies that this same myopic tunnel visioned group of “masters of the universe” should be trusted to deal with the growing climate crisis that is knocking on our front door.}
~ ~ ~  

The conclusions of the IPCC need to be repudiated lest they continue to discredit the United Nations' legitimate functions: its programs to improve the standard of living of the underdeveloped nations, its programs to combat hunger and poverty, its support of the conventions against genocide and torture, and its support of the International Criminal Court's prosecution of war criminals.

~ ~ ~
{Speaking of drivel, please note Martin’s letter totally sidesteps the science of global warming, while ignoring our society’s dependence upon benign weather patterns. Instead it is another collection of innuendo and insults of the sort denialists have developed into a high art form dedicated to deceive and confuse... and above all to encourage willful ignorance.
Shame on you Martin}
~ ~ ~  

Dr. Martin Hertzberg writes from Copper Mountain.

Tim DeChristopher. . . A Citizen With True Grit

2011-09-01T22:59:00.000-06:00

Courtesy of Greenman 3610

More and more of the media driven perceived-wisdom is focused on ourselves and “what can it do for me” thinking.

This attitude has allowed us collectively to disregard our natural world: the biosphere, the environment, our climate, our life support system. Instead believing the Reaganomics siren song of endlessly increasing consumption and maximizing profits . . .
. . . . . . . An economic plan that results in a society obsessed with facades - disregarding concerns for long term maintenance considerations, the sorts of things needed for creating something lasting, something that will be of service to our grandchildren.
~ ~ ~

Against this tide of Orwellian willful ignorance, there a few willing to take a stand, speaking up, being clear in motive and message, willing to take the consequences of sticking one to the big man. Few people indeed have such grit and honor these days, but they do exist.

Mr. DeChristopher belongs to that disappearing bred of people willing to make hard choices and face hard consequences, secure in knowing he is on the side of sanity and a message that must be championed by someone.

I get the feeling this young man will make constructive use of his jail time.
I offer thanks and gratitude to Tim for his thoughtfulness and clarity and bravery, as shown by his justifiable actions.

Among other things, Tim’s Mock trial along with his imprisonment will serve once again to reveal the utter ruthlessness of the corporate/political powers that be. This is what the voices for rational sustainable treatment of our planet’s biosphere, including the Utah lands Tim DeChristopher was protecting, are up against.

========

As for. . . The Rest of the Story

If you are interesting in the background here are two articles that are good starting points.

Tim DeChristopher Throws Utah Oil And Gas Drilling Leases Auction Into Chaos
PAUL FOY ~ 12/19/08 ~ 08:53 PM ~ Huffingtonpost.com

"I thought I could be effective by making bids, driving up prices for others and winning some bids myself," the Salt Lake City man said.
Some bidders said they were forced to bid thousands of dollars more for their parcels, while others fumed that they lost their bids.
"We were hosed," said Jason Blake of Park City, a consulting geologist who was outbid on a 320-acre parcel. "It's very frustrating. I hope the guy is prosecuted."
{...}
DeChristopher snapped up 22,500 acres of land around Arches and Canyonlands parks but said he could afford to pay for only a few of those acres. He owes $1.7 million on all of his leases.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tim DeChristopher Trial Begins In Utah's Oil-Gas Lease Auction Case
JENNIFER DOBNER ~ 02/28/11 ~ AP

SALT LAKE CITY — Hundreds of activists marched to the federal courthouse Monday to support a man who became an environmental folk hero by faking the purchase of $1.7 million of federal oil-and-gas drilling leases in an act of civil disobedience.
{...}
Prosecutors have offered DeChristopher multiple plea deals over the past two years, but he rejected those, opting instead to go to trial.
{...}
DeChristopher, who plans to testify, has said the government violated environmental laws in holding the auction. A federal judge later blocked many of the leases from being issued.
DeChristopher had offered to cover the bill with an Internet fundraising campaign, but the government refused to accept any of the money after the fact.
Federal prosecutors have acknowledged that DeChristopher is the only person ever charged with failing to make good on bids at a lease auction of public lands in Utah.
{...}

================================

copied from Peter Sinclair’s Climate Denial Crock of the Week

“If I had ever doubted the power of words,..” Prison Letter from Tim DeChristopher
September 1, 2011

The following text appeared in a handwritten letter from Tim DeChristopher addressed to Grist’s Jennifer Prediger.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If I had ever doubted the power of words, Judge Benson made their importance all too clear at my sentencing last month. When he sentenced me to two years in prison plus three years probation, he admitted my offense “wasn’t too bad.” The problem, Judge Benson insisted, was my “continuing trail of statements” and my lack of regret.

Apparently, all he really wanted was an apology, and for that, two years in prison could have been avoided. In fact, Judge Benson said that had it not been for the political statements I made in public, I would have avoided prosecution entirely. As is generally the case with civil disobedience, it was extremely important to the government that I come before the majesty of the court with my head bowed and express regret. So important, in fact, that an apology with proper genuflection is currently fair trade for a couple years in prison. Perhaps that’s why most activist cases end in a plea bargain.

Since that seems like such a good deal, some people are asking why I wasn’t willing to shut my mouth and take it. But perhaps we should be asking why the government is willing to make such a deal. The most recent plea bargain they offered me was for as little as 30 days in jail. (I’m writing this on my 28th day.) So if they wanted to lock me up for two years, why would they let me walk for an apology and keeping my mouth shut for a while? On the other hand, if they wanted to sweep this under the rug, why would they cause such a stir by locking me up? Why do my words make that much of a difference?

With all criminal cases, of which 85 percent end in a plea bargain, the government has a strong incentive to avoid a trial: In addition to cutting the expense of a trial, a plea bargain helps concentrate power in the hands of government officials.

The revolutionaries who founded this country were deeply distrustful of a concentration of power, so among other precautions, they established citizen juries as the most important part of our legal system and insisted upon constitutional right to a jury trial. To avoid this inconvenience, those seeking concentrated power free from revolutionaries have minimized the role of citizens in our legal system. They have accomplished this by restricting what juries can hear, what they can decide upon, and most importantly, by avoiding jury trials all together. It is now accepted as a basic fact of our criminal justice system that a defendant who exercises his or her right to a jury trial will be punished at sentencing for doing so. Transferring power from citizens to government happens when the role of citizens gets eliminated in the process.

With civil disobedience cases, however, the government puts an extra value on an apology. By its very nature, civil disobedience is an act whose message is that the government and its laws are not the sole voice of moral authority. It is a statement that we the citizens recognize a higher moral code to which the law is no longer aligned, and we invite our fellow citizens to recognize the difference. A government truly of the people, for the people, and by the people is not threatened by citizens issuing such a challenge. But government whose authority depends on an ignorant or apathetic citizenry is threatened by every act of open civil disobedience, no matter how small. To regain that tiny piece of authority, the government either has to respond to the activist’s demands, or get the activist to back down with a public statement of regret. Otherwise, those little challenges to the moral authority of government start to add up.

Over the last couple hundred years of quelling dissent, the government has learned a few things about maintaining power. Sometimes it seems that the government has learned more from our social movement history than we as activists have. Their willingness to let a direct action off with a slap on the wrist while handing out two years for political statements comes from their understanding of the power of an individual. They know that one person, or even a small group, cannot have enough of a direct impact on our corporate giants to really alter things in our economy. They know that a single person can’t have a meaningful direct impact on our political system. But our modern government is dismantling the First Amendment because they understand the very same thing our founding fathers did when they wrote it: What one person can do is to plant the seeds of love and outrage in the hearts of a movement. And if those hearts are fertile ground, those seeds of love and outrage will grow into a revolution.

============================

Ryan Maue, hurricanes & ACE (accumulated cyclone energy)

2011-08-30T23:31:00.008-06:00

I received a comment that I believe deserves it's own post:

T said...
I think that in denying the Denier, you might have missed this: hurricane ACE (accumulated cyclone energy) levels are historically low levels - worldwide, according to Dr. Ryan Maud.  
http://www.outlookseries.com/A0996/Science/3925_Ryan_Maue_FSU_Global_hurricane_activity_historical_lows_Ryan_Maue.htm  
NEW PAPER  http://coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/2011GL047711-pip.pdf

==============================================
In the process of looking up T's link and I came across another one of Patrick Michaels awful essays "Where Have All the Blowhards Gone?" focusing on the ACE as though it contains all we need to know about hurricanes.
{http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13296}.

It's another example of that art of taking a sliver of real fact and morphing it into some creature that has nothing to do with learning, instead being all about reinforcing that "free market" dogma, that refuses to allow any recognition of the situation we are creating for ourselves to shine through. . . but, i digress.

Mr. T suggested I consider the ACE, so consider it I shall.

For starters the paper has a misleading title, it should have read:
“Ryan_Maue_FSU_Global_ACE_ levels_historical_lows”
because ACE is a one eyed indicator of actual cyclone intensity and doesn't serve as an accurate measure of a cyclone's total energy expenditure, nor its potential destructive power.

ACE - Accumulated Cyclone Energy is:

“The ACE index is a wind energy index, defined as the sum of the squares of the maximum sustained surface wind speed (knots) measured every six hours for all named storms while they are at least tropical storm strength.”

ACE does not take into account moisture/water content,
nor does it factor in cyclone size.
Like trying to balance a stool on one leg.

ACE happens to be the easier data to collect and has it purposes, but when trying to understand global warming’s impact on cyclones, it is decidedly horse’n buggy stuff that has no right being waved around without seriously considering the full spectrum of the available science, something "skeptics" refuse to do.

I know, I know, I'm not a scientist, don't take my word for it, check out this link. . .

18th Conference on Applied Climatology
The misuse and misinterpretation of the ACE and PDI indices for hurricane energetics
Angela M. Fritz, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA; and J. I. Belanger, J. A. Curry, and G. J. Holland

{...}
The Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index and the Power Dissipation (PDI) Index are widely used as metrics to quantify seasonal hurricane activity both in the Atlantic basin and worldwide.

It can be shown that both of these indices are based on inaccurate assumptions that lead to a misuse and misinterpretation of the resulting index.

Towards advancing the indices of hurricane energetics that are associated with potential damage, we develop a new methodology for calculating an integrated kinetic energy (IKE) climatology. A simple, observation and dynamical – based radial wind speed model is used with the Extended Best Track dataset to calculate IKE for North Atlantic Hurricanes from 1988 to 2008. {...}

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Since this started with concern over increasing extreme weather events it's worth adding a few more informative links:

From the good folks over at SkepticalScience.com

"What is the link between hurricanes and global warming?":

"There are two aspects to hurricane activity that are often confused so it helps to consider them separately. Specifically, does global warming cause more frequent hurricanes and does it cause more intense hurricanes? . . ."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And a couple from Joe Romm at ThinkProgress.org

Stunning NOAA map of Tennessee’s 1000-year deluge

By Joe Romm on May 26, 2010
15 sites had rainfall exceeding maximum associated with Hurricane Katrina landfall

". . . Climate Progress has been documenting the woefully underreported Tennessee deluge of 2010 aka Nashville’s ‘Katrina’. It was an off-the-charts extreme weather event that human-caused global warming set the table for and almost certainly made more intense, as a leading climate scientist explained to me (interview to be posted next week).

But I didn’t understand just how unprecedented this superstorm was until I saw the above map from the Office of Hydrological Development at NOAA/NWS. . ."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

How Does Global Warming Make Hurricanes Like Irene More Destructive?

By Joe Romm on Aug 27, 2011

Climate science suggests that global warming will make hurricanes like Irene more destructive in three ways (all things being equal):

Sea level rise makes storm surges more destructive.

“Owing to higher SSTs [sea surface temperatures] from human activities, the increased water vapor in the atmosphere leads to 5 to 10% more rainfall and increases the risk of flooding,” as NCAR Senior Scientist Kevin Trenberth put it in an email to me today.

“However, because water vapor and higher ocean temperatures help fuel the storm, it is likely to be more intense and bigger as well,” as Trenberth writes

On the third point, warming also extends the range of warm SSTs, which can help sustain the strength of a hurricane as it steers on a northerly track. As meteorologist and former hurricane hunter Dr. Jeff Masters has explained:

… this year sea surface temperatures 1 – 3°F warmer than average extend along the East Coast from North Carolina to New York.

Waters of at least 26°C extend all the way to Southern New Jersey, which will make it easier for Irene to maintain its strength much farther to the north than a hurricane usually can.

During the month of July, ocean temperature off the mid-Atlantic coast (35°N – 40°N, 75°W – 70°W) averaged 2.6°F (1.45°C) above average, the second highest July ocean temperatures since record keeping began over a century ago (the record was 3.8°F above average, set in 2010.)

These warm ocean temperatures will also make Irene a much wetter hurricane than is typical, since much more water vapor can evaporate into the air from record-warm ocean surfaces.

=============================================================
Update:

'Extensive flooding' expected as Lee batters Louisiana
Posted: Sep 4, 2011 9:41 AM by CNN Wire Staff

(Tropical Storm) Lee is expected to produce 10 to 15 inches of rain from the central Gulf Coast northward into the Tennessee Valley, with some areas getting as much as 20 inches by Monday night, the National Hurricane Center said. "These rains are expected to cause extensive flooding and flash flooding," the center said in an advisory.

Some coastal residents said they were prepared. 'We are a sturdy people. All Gulf Coasters are willing and able to weather any storm," said Andrew Kaile of Metairie, Louisiana, just west of New Orleans, in an iReport Saturday.

As of 11 a.m. ET Sunday, Lee was "drifting northeastward over south-central Louisiana," the hurricane center said. Its maximum sustained winds were 45 mph, and it was moving at only 3 mph.

=============================================================

Please note that
this storm rates fairly low on the ACE scale,
because that scale don’t factor in water.
I'd love to ask the wordsmith Mr. Michaels what is the ACE actually good for so far as understanding the developing situation? Can you explain it?

Back to the story,
This storm is an example for the fact that global warming HAS increased atmospheric moisture around 7% above pre-70s levels.

Consider what happens to hurricanes when they encounter higher SSTs (sea surface temperature) within this atmosphere of higher amounts moisture/water and energy?

CAN YOU SEE IT BROTHERS AND SISTERS! ;-)

Hurricane Irene, Dr. Landsea. . . while the beat goes on. . .

2011-08-23T01:20:00.001-06:00

The following post is from over at SkepticForum where I have sort of a dialogue with a couple "skeptics." Seems to me this one touches on the crux of our contemporary situation so I've decided to copy* it over here for whatever it's worth.
======================================================

While the beat goes on. . .
Post #26 by citizenschallenge » Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:41 pm
{*Actually this is based on post #26 since reflecting on it, I've edited it some.}

Powerful Hurricane Irene heads toward Bahamas, US
By EZEQUIEL ABIU LOPEZ, Associated Press – 8/22/11

Irene grew into a Category 2 hurricane late Monday and the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said it could become a monstrous Category 3 storm as early as Tuesday.

"We didn't anticipate it gaining this much strength this early,"
said center meteorologist Chris Landsea,
adding that the ocean's warm temperatures and the current atmosphere is "very conducive" to energizing storms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Consider the implications of the above admission.

Please no more old time "a single-storm-tells-us-nothing" jazz,
I'm talking about global dynamics influenced by global alterations brought about by increased total system energy.

Then consider the implication of what we see reflected in our contemporary global weather. Case in point Hurricane Irene, she seems to vindicate Trenberth's summation of the situation way more than Landsea's dismissal. {and sorry Y, but that dramatic IPCC resignation letter Landsea wrote is all about politics containing no actual science.}

Point here is: these are the dynamics at work and this is the way things are.
We're witnessing it!
Just like the establishment climatologists have been trying so hard to explain to us.

And I guess my point with posting this is that the reality of the situation is even surprising Dr. Landsea, of skeptic fame.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Back to Trenberth's summation of the situation that so upset Y and that's being so ruthlessly flogged around the echo chamber. Dr. Trenberth’s summation should be thought about, rather than derided with contrived misdirection.

Haven't these ridiculous fraternity mind games gone on long enough?
What will it take before we all, collectively, start taking this stuff serious?
It's the real mccoy out there and we get no second chances!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Powerful Hurricane Irene heads toward Bahamas, US
By EZEQUIEL ABIU LOPEZ, Associated Press – 8/22/11
{continued}
... Irene is forecast to grow into a Category 3 hurricane late Tuesday as it moves over the warm waters of the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas, and could maintain that strength as it nears the U.S. coast.
Florida residents were urged to ensure they had batteries, drinking water, food and other supplies.
"We must prepare for the worst and hope for the best," said Joe Martinez, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Commission.

When will the ideologically based skeptics start taking such advice more seriously?

==================================================================
Let's examine the statement that upset Dr. Landsea.

You can find Dr. Landsea IPCC resignation letter here. The comments section is worth reviewing. To me the most insightful comment came from Dan Kirk-Davidoff, Asst. Professor of Meteorology, U. Maryland. I copy it below:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Posted by: Daniel Kirk-Davidoff at January 31, 2005 10:00 AM:
Here's what Trenberth said: "Human activities are changing the composition of the atmosphere and global warming is happening as a result," says Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at NCAR and a convening lead author of the 2007 IPCC report for the chapter on observed changes.

"Global warming is manifested in many ways, some unexpected. Sea level has risen 1.25 inches in the past 10 years as a result of warming of the oceans and glacier melting.

"The environment in which hurricanes form is changing. The result was a hurricane in late March 2004 in the South Atlantic, off the coast of Brazil: the first and only such hurricane in that region. Several factors go into forming hurricanes and where they track.

But the evidence strongly suggests more intense storms and risk of greater flooding events, so that the North Atlantic hurricane season of 2004 may well be a harbinger of the future."

 This does not sound so different from what Landsea acknowledges in his letter to Trenberth.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The conversation continues

Open letter to President Sullivan of the University of Virginia, regarding the Political Witch Hunt of Dr. Michael Mann

2011-08-20T22:48:00.002-06:00

The following is a response to the situation going at the University of Virginia as described at my previous post Reporting from the War On Science frontlines: Ask U.VA to Protect Its Scientists from the Political Witch Hunt

This is my open letter to President Sullivan of the University of Virginia
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Teresa A. Sullivan, President
University of Virginia
Madison Hall
president.sullivan@Virginia.EDU

Honorable President Sullivan, 
I’m just a little guy watching this cynical attack on academia that has been playing out between AG Cuccinelli and now the American Tradition Institute vs. the University of Virginia from the sidelines.

You certainly know the facts better than I do so I won’t presume to add anything to that. Still considering these sorts of attacks on science are happening with greater frequency I feel compelled to share some frank personal observations regarding the important precedent you will be setting as you move forward.

Have you given due consideration to the type, that is motivation, of the desired search being attempted?  What about Americans, including scientists, historic respect for personal freedom and privacy?  Isn’t that worth defending with vigor?

Academics are thinkers, most are also gregarious, that is, with those who are intellectually compatible. Personal discussions and musing... tossing out wild conjectures… investigating problems from every angle… playing devil’s advocate… sharing information and mistakes… chewing on and digesting every scrap of information they come across. Then they go to work following established protocols in their scientific field and publications.

Like most motivated self-aware individuals they do their best work possible. Their goals are accuracy in their observations, leading to an educated realistic understanding, striving to continue filling in missing details and building upon their current knowledge.

Moreover there are many of them, always looking over each others shoulders, checking and cross checking, looking for and following new leads, or gaps, or perceived mistakes in others work. Given the global community of competing scientists there are many checks and balances at work that despite all the blogosphere/media trash-talk simply have not been shown to be broken.

It is telling that the Cuccinelli, ATI, et al. have presented no actual indication of actual fraud. They simply have faith that if they dig deep enough they will find something… anything, to help them “nail” Mann. What’s right about that?

May I ask: Why are personal emails and working notes suddenly important for discovery regarding the voracity of the published global temperature records? Specially considering the many varied independent studies that support Mann et al’s basic temperature reconstruction with a high degree of consistency.

It’s this flaw in ATI/Cuccinelli’s logic that they should be pressed on. What are they trying to find that is relevant to the scientific debate? They have produced nothing, instead resembling bullies who resent the scientists work thus resort to witch-hunts for information that has no bearing on science, but might offer some useful dirt anyways.

Why would you consent to such an unwarranted intrusion at your university?

You represent the University of Virginia, I like to imagine a proud university, a bastion of thought, intellectual freedom, and unfettered learning, yet sounds like you are getting ready to allow obviously politically dedicated folks… mind you, folks with a passionate sense of mission for stopping any Global Warming awareness, into the closets and dresser drawers of anyone whom they have a grudge against? What’s up with that?

Where is the defense of scientific integrity in that?

Sincerely,

Peter Miesler

WitsEndnj.blogspot - Air Pollution, Ozone, CO2 & Dying Trees

2011-08-20T17:23:00.006-06:00

This is basically a For Your Information post regarding an information resource extraordinaire

Anyone doing a research project involving aspects of atmospheric pollutants be it Acid Rain, or low altitude Ozone, air pollutants, or CO2’s other problems here is a website of literally hundreds of relevant resources that Gail Zawacki, and friends, has put together at WitsEnd blog.

BASIC PREMISE + Research Links about Dying Trees

Government agencies such as NASA and the US Department of Agriculture measure annual losses of essential crops such as wheat, rice and soybeans in the billions of dollars from stunted growth and reduced production due to ozone. But does anybody stop to think what ozone must be doing to long-lived species - trees and shrubs and even lowly mosses - that suffer from cumulative exposure, season after season?
{...}
I have been looking into tree sensitivity to pollution ever since I realized that the trees are not only growing more slowly, they are actually dying at a rapidly accelerating rate. This is being reported from all over the world, not just around my farm in New Jersey. Every species of every age is in decline, as is the understory of the woods. It is well documented that ozone interferes with the ability of vegetation to photosynthesize by damaging the stomata of foliage and needles.
{...}

HERE is an ever expanding list of links to peer-reviewed publications and other reports, mostly about ozone and ethanol but also a few on acidifying oceans and climate change - those with stars are among the most pertinent.
The first section are articles I found and linked to - below that is a list that has been contributed by "Highschooler", an anonymous student who rightly understands the urgent need to cease burning fossil fuels and transition to clean energy - and is courageously doing far more than most adults to preserve a habitable climate and ecosystem for the future.

Union of Concerned Scientist's compilation of the Scientific Consensus

2011-08-19T15:19:00.008-06:00

Supplement to the "CONSENSUS" discussion at Center for Inquire and SkepticForum.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I have taken the liberty of bootlegging* a list compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists presenting the “consensus” as formalized by a great many scientific organizations {*though I'll be sending UCS-USA an email informing them of my deed.}.

I've done this because the issue of "consensus," and the way the contrarian community has bastardized it, becomes more important with every new unreasoned politically motivated attack on science we witness. Thus, it is worth considering in more detail, and that's why I've brought it up at a couple discussion boards.

This is an appendix of supporting documentation

==============================================================

Scientific Consensus on Global Warming
http://www.ucsusa.org/ssi/climate-change/scientific-consensus-on.html

Scientific societies and scientists have released statements and studies showing the growing consensus on climate change science.

A common objection to taking action to reduce our heat-trapping emissions has been uncertainty within the scientific community on whether or not global warming is happening and if it is caused by humans. However, there is now an overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is indeed happening and humans are contributing to it. Below are links to documents and statements attesting to this consensus.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Scientific Societies

• Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations 

"Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver." (October, 2009)

• American Meteorological Society: Climate Change: An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society 

"Indeed, strong observational evidence and results from modeling studies indicate that, at least over the last 50 years, human activities are a major contributor to climate change." (February 2007)

• American Physical Society: Statement on Climate Change 

"The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now." (November 2007)

• American Geophysical Union: Human Impacts on Climate 

"The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system—including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons—are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century." (Adopted December 2003, Revised and Reaffirmed December 2007)

• American Association for the Advancement of Science: AAAS Board Statement on Climate Change 

"The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society." (December 2006)

• Geological Society of America: Global Climate Change 

"The Geological Society of America (GSA) supports the scientific conclusions that Earth’s climate is changing; the climate changes are due in part to human activities; and the probable consequences of the climate changes will be significant and blind to geopolitical boundaries." (October 2006)

• American Chemical Society: Statement on Global Climate Change 

"There is now general agreement among scientific experts that the recent warming trend is real (and particularly strong within the past 20 years), that most of the observed warming is likely due to increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, and that climate change could have serious adverse effects by the end of this century." (July 2004)

~ ~ ~

National Science Academies

• U.S. National Academy of Sciences: Understanding and Responding to Climate Change  

"The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." (2005)

• International academies: Joint science academies’ statement: Global response to climate change  

"Climate change is real. There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring." (2005, 11 national academies of science)

• International academies: The Science of Climate Change  

"Despite increasing consensus on the science underpinning predictions of global climate change, doubts have been expressed recently about the need to mitigate the risks posed by global climate change. We do not consider such doubts justified." (2001, 16 national academies of science)

~ ~ ~

Research

• National Research Council of the National Academies: America’s Climate Choices 

"Most of the recent warming can be attributed to fossil fuel burning and other human activities that release carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere." America's Climate Choices, Advancing the Science of Climate Change, 2010

• U.S. Climate Change Research Program: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States (2009)

"Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced. Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases."

• Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, Peter T. Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman  

"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."  

Doran surveyed 10,257 Earth scientists. Thirty percent responded to the survey which asked: 1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant? and 2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

• Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,
Naomi Oreskes

  "Oreskes analyzed 928 abstracts published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 and listed in the ISI database with the keywords 'climate change.'... Of all the papers, 75 percent either explicitly or implicitly accepted the consensus view that global warming is happening and humans are contributing to it; 25 percent dealt with methods or ancient climates, taking no position on current anthropogenic [human-caused] climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

~ ~ ~

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

• Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, IPCC, 2007. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M.Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.  

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level”  

“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”  IPCC defines "very likely" as greater than 90% probability of occurrence.

~ ~ ~

Sign-on Statements

• The Importance of Science in Addressing Climate Change:

Scientists’ letter to the U.S. Congress. Statement signed by 18 scientists.

 "We want to assure you that the science is strong and that there is nothing abstract about the risks facing our Nation." (2011)

• Climate Change and the Integrity of Science
 Signed by 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences.

"... For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet. ... The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. ...Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation." (2010)

• U.S. Scientists and Economists' Call for Swift and Deep Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions
 

"We call on our nation's leaders to swiftly establish and implement policies to bring about deep reductions in heat-trapping emissions. The strength of the science on climate change compels us to warn the nation about the growing risk of irreversible consequences as global average temperatures continue to increase over pre-industrial levels (i.e. prior to 1860). As temperatures rise further, the scope and severity of global warming impacts will continue to accelerate." (2008)

• Increase Your Leadership on Global Warming: A Letter from California Scientists  

"If emissions continue unabated, the serious consequences of a changing climate for California are likely to include a striking increase in extreme heat and heat-related mortality, significant reductions in Sierra snowpack with severe impacts on water supply, mounting challenges to agricultural production, and sea-level rise leading to more widespread erosion of California’s beaches and coastline." (2005)

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Last Revised: 03/07/11
Union of Concerned Scientists, USA

Joe Bastardi ~ Meteorological Malpractice examined

2011-08-18T00:11:00.003-06:00

Recently, I’ve been increasingly disturbed by the escalating war on science. An example of this trend is the national exposure a blatant liar such as AccuWeather’s Joe Bastardi is afforded.

Joe Romm, at ThinkProgress.org had put a lot of effort into compiling a number of investigative reports following the track record of meteorological malpractice Bastardi has established.

See if the evidence doesn’t have you agreeing with Joe Romm that AccuWeather should be ashamed to have such a man broadcasting his deception over their networks. In fact, considering the legal harassment Michael Mann has been subjected to for doing diligent science, why isn’t Joe Bastardi being prosecuted for his out and out frauds and for the willful misinformation he is spreading nationally? It's as though truth just don't matter to these folks.

The first part is based on a ScientificAmerica.com commentary and the second is a liberal sharing from Joe Romm’s impressive investigative reporting.

Fox Commentator Distorts Physics
By Davide Castelvecchi ~ August 11, 2011 ~ Scientific American.com
Here’s the 8/6/11 video.

“On the August 6 edition of Fox and Friends Saturday, the hosts interviewed Joe Bastardi —whom they introduced as “chief meteorologist at WeatherBell”—on global warming.

“Before introducing Bastardi the hosts said that the global warming debate was heating up “after a new NASA study seems to debunk whether it’s actually manmade.” No further details were provided. Instead, as evidence the hosts provided the results of a poll. But presumably the Fox presenters were referring to a study that has created a lot of controversy and media hype.”

==========

Yup, and so it goes, FOX announcer headlines: “... after a new NASA study seems to debunk whether it’s actually manmade.” No details are provided although the probable study in question has had a lot of holes poked in it. Instead there was a jump to some gratuitous Rasmussen poll result claiming 69% “think scientists falsify research.” Not a shred of supporting evidence, just a gut level rejection I suspect.

Now, please think about it a moment, this sort of numerical fraud is beyond comprehension, considering that satellites and computers are retrieving the information and recording it. Those records are stored in open access* sources. This data gets reviewed by hundreds if not thousands of independent teams and entities. {*Sure “open access” according to academic protocols. After all don’t they have the right to know that the folks looking at the data are at least educated enough to know what they are looking at and how to handle the data? }

It’s so ugly to see the latest echo-chamber ratcheting-up of their attack on science to the point of openly accusing scientists of falsifying data sans evidence... that is, even though they have presented no substantive evidence ~~~ Incidentally, flippant comments within inter-personal emails not withstanding: Where’s the substantive evidence of fraudulent data manipulation?... or is it as it seems, only hot air slander magnified by a corporate owned and agenda driven popular media machine?
~ ~ ~

Bastardi then goes on to condemn well over a century of solid science, including stuff that made heat seeking missile accuracy possible. It’s real solid deep fundamental physics understandings, but Joe has a different take:

“[Saying that CO2 could affect the climate] contradicts what we call the first law of thermodynamics: energy can never be created nor destroyed. So, to look for an input of energy into the atmosphere you have to come from a foreign source.”

~ ~ ~

Come on, this is like seventh grade science student gibberish. Yes we have to look outside our atmosphere for the energy input, but no further than our sun. The point is, it’s the thermo properties of GHGs causing the warming, and none of that contradicts the first law of thermodynamics.

Here’s how the ScientificAmerican article put it:

“What climate science says is not that CO2 carries energy into the atmosphere or somehow magically generates it out of nowhere. Instead, it says that CO2 and other gases acts as a blanket, keeping heat from escaping into space. This, as Bastardi should know, is called the greenhouse effect.”

“The greenhouse effect results from the fact that CO2 (and other greenhouse gases, chiefly water vapor) is more opaque to infrared radiation than it is to visible light.”

It’s about absorbing infrared heat energy on a molecular level, no challenge to the first laws principles. As for saturation claims... those are based on small volume table top experiments... our atmosphere is in motion all the time, the molecules don’t line up long enough for the saturation effect to have an effect.
~ ~ ~

Bastardi then points a whimsical finger at other culprits: ‘could be sunspot cycles and ocean currents.’
The lie in this is that sunspot cycles are at a historic low, and ocean currents collect and move heat around but they do not produce heat which Bastardi’s supposition would require.

Furthermore, Bastardi use of the “Le Chatelier’s Principle” is disingenuous to the extreme: That principle being that “When a system in equilibrium is disturbed by a change of temperature, pressure, or concentration variable, the system shifts in equilibrium composition in a way that tend to counteract this change of variable”

Thing is, our planet is not in any such equilibrium and there is no reason to believe there’s some ideal temp Gaia seeks to return to, which is exactly what Bastardi is implying. So what does that leave? Perhaps starting to appreciate the consensus climatological understanding?

Skeptic Check: Plotting Along Monday 15 August 2011 is a short podcast that takes another tack at explaining the above science, though it doesn’t start until into the second minute.

=================================================================

Update August 16: Bad Astronomy points out that Bastardi apparently has a long history of misunderstanding and misrepresenting science.

=================================================================

Here’s a list of other instances of meteorological malpractice justifying Joe Bastardi’s termination as a public meteorologist. Unless in italics this is pretty much a cut and paste from ThinkProgess.com, though I’ve cut out many sections so encourage you to link to his site. I am doing this simply because I believe this information needs more exposure and I’m trying to do my two bits worth. :-)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As documented by Joe Romm at
ThinkProgress.org

Meteorological Malpractice: Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi pushes the “70s Ice Age Scare” myth again

By Joe Romm on Jan 18, 2011

{...}
“Now Bastardi has a new official In-Accuweather video, his weekly “Global sea ice and temperature report.” In it he claims the Navy believes Arctic ice is getting thicker, when in fact they have testified to Congress that it is getting thinner and will continue to do so. He egregiously asserts the satellite data has falsified the theory of global warming by failing to show stratospheric cooling — without actually checking the satellite data to see that it in fact shows the stratosphere has been cooling for decades. And he just can’t resist smearing the many dedicated scientists at NOAA and NASA who work tirelessly to bring us the actual surface temperature data so people (other than Bastardi) can make accurate weather and climate forecasts and decisions.”
{...}

~~ ah and then more Bastardi lies~~

“First off, while Bastardi asserts the Navy agrees with him, in fact it takes a very different view — see Arctic Death Spiral 2010: Navy’s oceanographer, Rear Admiral David Titley, tells Congress, “the volume of ice as of last September has never been lower” in the last several thousand years.”

“Perhaps more telling, while Bastardi’s forecast would have the Navy planning for Arctic sea ice to return to 1970s levels, Titley says he has told the Chief of Naval Operations that “we expect to see four weeks of basically ice free conditions in the mid to late 2030s.

"In his retraction, Bastardi did say last month that the scientists of the National Snow and Ice Data Center are “honest brokers.” Well, here’s what their data shows:

“Researchers often look at ice age as a way to estimate ice thickness. Older ice tends to be thicker than younger, one- or two-year-old ice.

The death spiral of Arctic sea ice continued this year, according to both observations and modeling. The figure above comes from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. In September, NSIDC’s director Mark Serreze said, “The volume of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month” and “I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It’s not going to recover.”{...}
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Second, {...}
“Bastardi’s way of trying to figure out if there has been a long-term cooling of the stratosphere is to eyeball overlapping daily curves from the last decade. Because he can’t find 2010, that proves “there’s no positive feedback,” and that climate science is wrong.
{...}
“I asked Prof. Scott Mandia to reply to Bastardi’s claim and he directed me to the actual RSS satellite data, pointing out the “decadal trend image which shows cooling of 0.306K per decade in the lower stratosphere”:

“It is true that there has been a leveling off and slight rise in the last year, which, as Mandia notes, “appears to be in response to ozone recovery which is offsetting the cooling.” But the fact is this basic climate science prediction has held true for three decades. For more on the stratospheric cooling see this piece by Mandia.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Third, the satellite data issue:
{...}
“Bastardi says: “You know how I love the objective satellite data because you can’t monkey with it. You can’t take the temperatures down beforehand or Whatever. So, yeah, I’m throwing in my little shots on the side. I understand. But the data is all there. And I encourage you, whether I’m right or wrong about this, to go look for yourself.”

“You can of course monkey with the objective satellite data. Spencer and Christy persisted in multiple mistakes for a decade that just happened to all go in the same direction (see “Should you believe anything John Christy and Roy Spencer say?“).

“As RealClimate wrote:
We now know, of course, that the satellite data set confirms that the climate is warming, and indeed at very nearly the same rate as indicated by the surface temperature records. Now, there’s nothing wrong with making mistakes when pursuing an innovative observational method, but Spencer and Christy sat by for most of a decade allowing “indeed encouraging” the use of their data set as an icon for global warming skeptics.

“They committed serial errors in the data analysis, but insisted they were right and models and thermometers were wrong. They did little or nothing to root out possible sources of errors, and left it to others to clean up the mess, as has now been done.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Fourth,
by “little shots,” of course, Bastardi is once again questioning of the integrity of the scientists that NOAA and NASA who put together the surface temperature data, suggesting that they are cooking the books “tak[ing] the temperatures down beforehand.” Again, there is no evidence whatsoever that NOAA or NASA have done that, but when has evidence been the basis of anything Bastardi has said?

“Bastardi should retract the video and apologize for the “little shots” smear. If he won’t, then he is once again abusing his position at Accuweather to spread disinformation and trying to undermine the efforts of scientists to provide accurate, independent information about what humans are doing to this planet.

“In that case, In-AccuWeather should retract the video and fire him. Of course, if they do, I expect FoxNews will officially hire him as their ‘forecaster’.

“If you want to share your views with Inaccuweather, the American Meteorological Society was kind enough to post the contact information for their distinguished Founder, Chairman, & President, Joel N. Myers:
myersj@accuweather.com
Please keep it genuinely civil
{...}

hat tip to Peter Sinclair {likewise!}
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Related Posts:
• Long wrong Joe Bastardi cooks the books to smear NSIDC. Time for Accuweather to fire him: National Snow & Ice Data Center explains Bastardi can’t read graphs and “is unclear as to how standardized anomalies are derived”

• Joe Bastardi can’t read a temperature anomaly map and so spins another conspiracy theory: Says pre-1978 temperatures use “magic readjustment”

• Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi admits, “Earth continues warmest winter since satellite measurements started”: Then he invents a new, self-contradictory theory of warming.

• Meteorological Malpractice: Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi pushes the “70s Ice Age Scare” myth again

• O’Reilly’s weatherman, befuddled Bastardi: “Global cooling is actually a cause of drought in California”

• Joe Bastardi asserts “The coming cooling of the planet overall will return it to where it was in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s”

================================================

This is Not Cool. Heatwave 2011.

2011-08-17T15:38:00.001-06:00

Brought to you courtesy of YouTube's Greenman3610 Channel

=================================================================
I've shared this with my pals over at SkepticForum and received the following reply:

["citizenschallenge" wrote]If you think what Peter Sinclair has presented there is false or misrepresenting the facts, can you come with authoritative contra-arguments to what that video portrays?

["X" wrote] That video is not science, it is political rhetoric.
Why should I pay any attention to a cartoonist's propaganda?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Seemed to me the video was a pretty serious line up of information, even if delivered in an easy manner. Why is it so easy for folks to dismiss it all out of hand?
Why the refusal to look at the substance contained within the video?

Where's that superior exclusionary attitude come from?

I've gone through the video again and highlighted what seems like points worth taking seriously.
I've even highlighted the sources of those statements, though I've added on some additional substantive links. And decided to share my note taking over here.

Unauthorized Notes: "This is Not Cool. Heatwave 2011."
by greenman3610 aka Peter Sinclair

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0:55 - 1953 - Gilbert Plass “Growing Blanket of Carbon Dioxide Raises Earth’s Temperature”
(1950’s intensive US military study of heat radiation in the atmosphere -
the science is settled enough to make self guided heat-seeking missiles accurate!)
Also see 1959 Scientific America article

1:20 - 1958 - Climate Change: The Bell Telephone Science Hour - Dr. Baxter explains CO2 knowledge and its implications.

1:30 - 1965 - Science Advisory Panel Report to President Johnson
“Man is unwittingly conducting a vast geophysical experiment...” here

1:50 - 1979 - Woods Hole, Climate Research Board - Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences - National Research Council
“Report of an Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate”
“A “wait and see” policy may mean waiting until it is too late...”

2:00 - Young Stephen Schneider sharing the prevailing scientific consensus understanding.

2:10 - 1988 - Isaac Asimov - pointing out that he, and others, have been talking about CO2 and it’s global warming ramification for the past twenty years and more.

2:30 - 1988 - Hansen’s Congressional testimony

2:40 - General Gordon Sullivan, former Chief of Staff US Army, Global climate change presents a serious national security threat

3:00 - now we have entered an era of consequences

3:20 - Admiral David Titley, Chief Oceanographer US Navy

3:35 - impacts - US Drought Map

3:45 - US Global Change Research Program, commissioned by Bush Administration:
“Projections of increasing temperatures, faster evaporation rates, and more sustained droughts brought on by climate change will only add more stress to overtaxed water sources. . .”

4:00 - 2011 - news reports of the drought, and heat wave - tough maps of USA July 2011

6:00 - actual satellite time lapse of the El Nino/La Nina Pacific Oscillation. {Here's a "Very simple (but good) 'meat and potatoes' explanation of La Nina/El Nino"... once you get past the regrettable first 1:15 min that is.}

6:10 - National Data Center/NESDIS/NOAA - Temperature Anomalies Jan - Jun 2011

6:30 - Lou Dobbs show, talking head predicts “new ice age”

6:35 - 6/27/10 - Joe Bastardi ~ makes forecast. . . {and it’s guys like this you prefer to trust?}

7:55 - Roy Spencer’s data July 2010; February 2011; July 2011

“This series is about our planet and how it works. . ."

What's wrong with that?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Reporting from the War On Science frontlines: Ask U.VA to Protect Its Scientists from the Political Witch Hunt

2011-08-15T10:09:00.000-06:00

Reading a recent post over at Scott Mandia's Global Warming: Man or Myth? blog I decided I needed to share an unabridged version over here.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ask U.VA to Protect Its Scientists from the Political Witch Hunt

Please read this Washington Post editorial and consider sending a message to University of Virigina officials.
I sent the letter posted here to President Teresa Sullivan,
Carol Wood (Assistant Vice President for Public Affairs),
Richard Kast (Associate General Counsel),
and Susan Harris (Secretary to the Board of Visitors).
Academic freedom is at stake and we do not want another climategate false controversy which is what I see coming.

Dear Dr. Sullivan:

I am deeply concerned about the agreement made between your institution and American Tradition Institute (ATI) which would allow ATI access to personal email correspondence and other documents from Dr. Michael Mann and more than thirty other scientists. I fully support the changes requested by Union of Concerned Scientists, American Geophysical Union, American Association of University Professors, and Climate Science Watch to better protect the private correspondence between professional scientists and to prevent exempted documents from being released.

Dr. Mann’s temperature reconstruction that shows modern climate warmer than at any time in the past millennium (the hockey stick) has been duplicated by many international scientists using different types of data and different types of data analyses. There is no reason to suspect any wrong-doing on his part or the others.

There is more at stake here than just academic freedom. Human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are warming the planetary system and increasing risks to public health, national security, and financial stability. There is no scientific debate about this. The United States National Academy of Sciences (2010) stated “a strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems…. Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.”

Unfortunately, the general public is not getting this message because those that oppose pricing carbon are sewing doubt in order to delay action. Leading the charge of manufactured doubt are political think tanks such as Chris Horner’s ATI and Competitive Enterprise Institute as well as the anti-climate science media outlets such as Fox News and The Wall Street Journal. Their tactics are working. As the science grows stronger each year polls shows the public becoming less certain. It has gotten so bad that some Republican candidates for President have backtracked from their earlier positions that humans were causing most of the observed climate change.

The only reason that Chris Horner and Kenneth Cuccinelli wish to see private emails is because they hope to find something that, when taken out of context, could be spun to create a false controversy. Make no mistake about it. If they get their hands on private email messages from Dr. Mann and others, they will try to use those emails to manufacture a false conspiracy just like emails stolen from Climate Research Unit in November 2009. Those innocent emails were leaked out of context to sabotage the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference and they are still being referred to today by US Congressman in House hearings who wish to delay action. It would be a shame to see “climategate” replayed again two years later with this time University of Virginia being in the spotlight instead of University of East Anglia.

Please do not trust them to honor the gag order.

Sincerely,

Scott A. Mandia
Asst. Chair/Professor of Physical Sciences
Suffolk County Community College
Selden, NY 11764

Cc: Carol Wood, Assistant Vice President for Public Affairs
Richard Kast, Associate General Counsel
Susan Harris, Secretary to the Board of Visitors

The letter from UCS, AGU, AAUP, and Climate Science Watch I refer to in this post.

Please consider sending a letter. The contact info for these people can be located via their search page.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If you share the concerns raised in the above letter, please heed Professor Mandia's request and send a message to the University of Virginia, letting them know you are concerned about protecting the integrity of science.

Reporting from the War On Science frontlines: AGU, AAUP, CSW, UCS Open Letter to the University of Virginia

2011-08-15T09:38:00.000-06:00

Here is some background information to the above post regarding the attack on science occurring at the University of Virginia.

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The four groups — the American Association of University Professors, the American Geophysical Union, the Climate Science Watch and the Union of Concerned Scientists sent this letter to the University of Virginia.

August 10, 2011
president.sullivan@Virginia.EDU

Teresa A. Sullivan, President
University of Virginia
Madison Hall

Dear Dr. Sullivan:
As you know, we are among many organizations and concerned citizens who have followed with great interest the University of Virginia's response to efforts by both Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli and the American Tradition Institute (ATI) to access personal email correspondence and other documents from Dr. Michael Mann and more than thirty other scientists.

We appreciate the university’s decision to challenge Mr. Cuccinelli's Civil Investigative Demands. We also appreciate the commitment you made in your April 21, 2011 letter to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and other organizations to utilize “all available exemptions” in responding to ATI's request under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.

However, we are concerned that the May 24, 2011 agreement between the university and ATI gives ATI needless access to the requested documents. We believe the agreement is in conflict with the university’s previous statements and actions on this issue and that it threatens the principles of academic freedom protecting scholarly research. Furthermore, the agreement cuts against accepted practice in Virginia for responding to open records requests. The university should seek to improve the agreement to better protect scientists from harassment and intimidation.

We fully embrace the university's responsibility to respond appropriately to open records requests. Freedom of information laws are critical for keeping public institutions and their employees accountable to the people who support them. We also support the university’s equally important obligation to protect its employees' privacy and preserve researchers' ability to privately and freely correspond with one another.

Unfortunately, the university’s agreement with ATI does not adequately balance these two responsibilities. We find it troubling that the agreement would allow ATI lawyers, including the very individuals who filed the open records request, to review all documents in the university’s possession, including material which will ultimately be exempt from disclosure.

While the agreement asserts that ATI representatives would be under a gag order regarding exempt documents, we are concerned that giving requesters this level of access sets an entirely new precedent and would create a chilling effect for current Virginia researchers.

The established practice in Virginia Freedom of Information Act cases which involve privacy rights is to prepare an indexed summary of potentially exempt documents and the specific exemption that applies. Then, if there remains a dispute over the basis for the exemption, the judge can review the contested records privately, or in camera, and make a ruling without harming any privacy interests. This is the favored practice recommended by the Virginia Supreme Court in Paul C. Bland vs. Virginia State University, 272 Va. 198, 630 S.E.2d 525 (2006).

Further, there is ample evidence that many if not all of the documents requested by ATI will ultimately be exempt from disclosure. The Washington Post in a May 29, 2011 editorial wrote that, “...a university spokesperson said that U-Va. anticipates that most of the documents at issue will be exempt under a statute that ‘excludes from disclosure unpublished proprietary information produced or collected by faculty in the conduct of, or as a result of, study or research on scientific or scholarly issues.’”

Additionally, the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council has issued guidance regarding the “working paper” exemption to records requests. This exemption protects from mandatory disclosure the working papers and correspondence of the presidents of Virginia’s public universities and other public officials.

Like the scientific research exemption, the working paper exemption is grounded in the interests of privacy and the notion that internal communications and deliberations of public employees are protected to facilitate creativity and the free exchange of ideas.

According to the Advisory Council, “the working papers exemption was designed to provide an unfettered zone of privacy for the deliberative process…a policy determination that protecting decision-making creativity with an ongoing zone of privacy ultimately benefits the public by encouraging the free-flow of ideas by government employees and officials” (AO-17-04). It would be strange, indeed, if your own email correspondence is protected against disclosure but Dr. Mann’s emails are not.

Finally, the university should keep in mind that the agreement risks disclosing emails to ATI among Dr. Mann and his students. As you acknowledged in your letter to AAUP and other groups, the university has a commitment to protect certain correspondence under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Moving forward with the agreement as it stands will send scientists at public institutions a message that communicating frankly with colleagues carries significant risk. Therefore, we hope the university will modify its agreement with ATI to adequately protect the privacy of scientists involved and uphold the principles of academic freedom which you have previously articulated.
We look forward to your timely response.

Sincerely yours,
American Association of University Professors
American Geophysical Union
Climate Science Watch
Union of Concerned Scientists

CC: Carol Wood, assistant vice president for public affairs
Richard Kast, associate general counsel
Susan Harris, secretary to the Board of Visitors

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Included with this letter were two supporting documents.
One was a court "OPINION BY SENIOR JUSTICE CHARLES S. RUSSELL"
This appeal involves the application of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Code § 2.2-3700 et seq.
The other document is a decision by the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council. Excerpts are printed below

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The staff of the (Virginia) Freedom of Information Advisory Council is authorized to issue advisory opinions. The ensuing staff advisory opinion is based solely upon the information presented in your letter of April 30, 2004.

Dear Mr. Nawrocki:
You have asked a question concerning the application of the Governor's working papers exemption under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
{...}
The question remains, however, as to whether any other event, aside from dissemination, triggers a loss of the working papers exemption.
{...}
Application of the exemption inherently involves the consideration of two competing policies -
- the need for a zone of privacy in the deliberative process to protect creativity and the free-
flow of ideas, and the policy of FOIA at subsection B of § 2.2-3700 that the affairs of government are not intended to be conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy.

Certainly one can appreciate that when a particular course of action or public policy is being explored by government, those involved in the decision-making process should be encouraged to put all ideas and perspectives on the table, even if some of those ideas might later be discounted as unworkable or impractical.

If the chief executive were required to make all such ideas and suggestions public, those who report to the chief executive might be hesitant to speak up to brainstorm or make suggestions for fear of public scrutiny or ridicule. This would result in a
chilling effect on the unfettered and free flow of ideas, which ultimately could lead to something less than full and open discourse concerning a particular policy or decision.
{...}
Conversely, once a decision has been reached to pursue a particular project or course of action, one could argue that it is in the public interest to allow working papers to become public so that the thought process that led to that particular decision might be revealed. Arguably, the actual decision is only a part of the decision-making process, and keeping that process hidden leaves the public out of that process.

In resolving these competing policies by giving reasonable effect to the intent of the law, I must conclude that the working papers exemption was designed to provide an unfettered zone of privacy for the deliberative process.
{...}
"In conclusion, the working papers exemption does not expire unless the working papers are disseminated or otherwise made public by the official to whom the exemption applies. Absent such a release, a record created by or for one of the named officials for his personal or deliberative use retains the characterization of a working paper. To the extent that this opinion reaches a different conclusion from previous opinions of this office, this opinion will guide future policy and application."

Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council
8/4/2011
http://foiacouncil.dls.virginia.gov/ops/04/AO_17_04.htm

Thank you for contacting this office. I hope that I have been of assistance.
Sincerely,
Maria J.K. Everett
Executive Director

A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never!

2011-08-08T00:01:00.006-06:00

I'm active in a couple discuss forums with some AGW "skeptics" and something that increasingly perplexes me is their ability to ignore the full scope of climate changes as witnessed by the past two decades and specially these past two years of increasingly freakish weather events.

Try as I might I fail at making a dent. Today I came across this video reproduction of an editorial written by Bill McKibben, long time Earth Science reporter. To be blunt, it presents our situation with the sober clarity of a much needed slap in the face.

As I said over at the SkepticForum: "I'd be curious if anyone had any thoughts to share... " If you're so inclined join the "discussion"

Thank you http://climatecrocks.com

This video takes Bill McKibben’s recent editorial from the Washington Post {"A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never!"}
sets it to music and video of last year’s weather events.

Comparing the WMD hoax, with the alleged AGW hoax

2011-08-06T14:47:00.007-06:00

I participate over at SkepticForum.com where I found myself inspired to write this post. Maybe it’s just a rant, but it’s a rant I now feel like depositing at this website. If anyone is curious about the discussion please do visit SkepticForum.com.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

quoting CC:
Amazing paragraph, no conspiracy: "does have big budget," "doesn't pay credible scientists," "instead paying the media" (to misreport?)... not a hint of conspiracy thinking to be found. :?
quoting M.B.:
No. The mind numbingly predictable reporting of an infotainment industry, as well as the political class, peddling anything exciting the basest emotions is not a conspiracy. It's only what I've learned to expect. AGW hysteria is only more of the same. Maybe you've forgotten "weapons of mass destruction" already. I haven't.

How strange that you would bring up the Weapons Of Mass Destruction. OK, it’s off topic but why not look at this WMD hoax... the one that compelled the abandonment of tracking down the true 9/11 perpetrators, in favor of an invasion of choice into a country that had nothing to with USA’s real target, Bin Laden. Thus, leaving the 9/11 perpetrators to organize and recruit a world wide army of frustrated people while filling them with self-righteous hatred and a storyline. . .
One that USA only encouraged and fueled with it’s childlike ‘shock’n awe’ yeehaa gonna play with bombs mentality that rained down utter destruction on a country... that is cities and towns and neighborhoods and lives of innocent people. While the kids of Iraq were getting their body parts blown apart, Bin Laden was cozy in his head-quarters knowing he actually had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

Consider the cast of characters in that “WMD debate”

Let’s be honest it was the Bush/Cheney’s and the right wing “think tank”/media types that were out there boostering and marshaling the “WMD and the mushroom cloud,” “We gotta invade NOW” meme. All for an invasion/war-of-choice - that clear thinking people, or should I say folks with a broader more world-aware perspective {As opposed to ideology shackled tunnel vision} - recognized would be the disastrous and ultimately self-destructive act it turned out to be.

The “lefties” were the one’s pointing out that the Iraqi pro-invasion WMD evidence was flimsy at best, downright fraudulent at worst; plus the people involved in the planning were way too emotionally and financially involved to think clearly. The “lefties” were trying to remind everyone, Osama bin Laden and his thugs were the SOBs we needed to vanquish. That would have given the US people closure and a victory to be proud of; and impressed the world to no end. Instead, Bush/Cheney et al. made their counter-move of personal {not national interest} choice, the one Osama was praying for, and the rest has been sheit on a slippery down hill slope ever since.

So here we are again, in a different, yet similar political ball game. With many of the same cast of characters.

We got these incestuous right wing “think tanks” developing their agenda driven memes, and lesson plans, and ad/media distribution strategies (that “movement” thing I alluded to in another post) trumpeting headlines that misrepresent the essence and content of only those few “skeptical” studies that fit their tune, while fixedly ignoring the full breath and scope of the scientific evidence.

And we got the “lefties” pointing at melting glaciers, warming oceans, qualitative alterations in global weather systems {But, M wants escalating rates, well what about last year’s “heat dome” that sat over Russia, and the million square mile “heat dome” sitting over USA right now. How much more escalation will be needed to shake the certitude of folks under the spell of a manufactured politically motivated anti-science movement?}

Then the “righties” will fire back with argument focused on carefully selected graph line minutia that seem to me little more than distractions when presented selectively.

M says “at current rates", predicted warming for century can’t possible happen.
How do you know the current rate will, or is expected to, continue?
What is your source?
What about considering that the Arctic Ocean is going to becomes a summer long solar absorption plate in two to three decades, from there evolving into an increasingly year around feature? Or, the extra kick warming is going to get as the tundra and permafrost continues it’s serious melting? There are more cascading warming amplifiers all being ignored, like that tree that silently fell in the forest.

M might counter: show me your numbers, prove that these latest numbers on such and such study are absolutely accurate, etc., etc.

Well to be honest I myself don’t worry about those tiny details because I appreciate they don’t change the big picture. Or, the fact that for the past forty years of actively observing/paying attention to our planet’s weather and climate changes. I know they have been big and one directional ~ yea, yea, fluctuating a bit ~ nonetheless with relentless momentum in one direction. It’s why I’m more passionate about this than your average bear. But, I know that’s just me and myself.

What drives me to all this writing or whatever you want to call it, is that the studies year after year continue to pile up. That is, the scientists, the ones who have done the training to actually understand the complexities of data collection and processing and graphing. The folks who not only care about every bit of minutia, but study and understand it. What those folks have collected and the studies they’ve produced overwhelmingly supports my gut feeling {which is based on my observations along with the knowledge I’ve gleaned over the years}, while refining my knowledge of how our climate works. And it’s fun and full of surprises and regular readjustments of what I know in light of new information. That’s what learning and experiencing life is all about.

Heck, it’s been one of the benefits of the back and forth here at SkepticForum, it exposes me to new info. encourages new reading, and modifies or refines my understanding. Can’t help it if much of the "skeptical claims" doesn’t stand up to thoughtful critical review.

But, that shouldn’t stop folks from sharing studies, I love to see what’s out there. Still, the sad thing is, the longer the political debate continues, the more the global weather/cryosphere reports reinforce the weight of my perspective. And the more momentum our AGW monster gathers.

“On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” reviewed

2011-08-01T03:12:00.004-06:00

A new paper by Roy Spencer and Danny Braswell (SB11) titled, “On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” has taken the climate change blogosphere by storm. First, the usual contrarians lead by James Taylor of the Heartland Institute broadcast their spin on the study and it has gone viral in the echo-chamber.

But, the hounds of scientific justice were on their trail in no time, striving to re-inject some realism and set the story straight. I've listed various authoritative reviews and investigations into the Roy Spencer and Danny Braswell's claims.

First though, a summation of the basic issues... courtesy of SkepticalScience.com

"The basic material in the paper has very basic shortcomings because no statistical significance of results, error bars, or uncertainties are given either in the figures or discussed in the text. . ."
~ ~ ~

"Moreover the description of the methods in the paper is not sufficient to be able to replicate the results. . ."
~ ~ ~

"To help interpret the results, Spencer uses a simple model. But the simple model used by Spencer is too simple: well this has gone way beyond being too simple (see for instance this post by Barry Bickmore).

The model has no realistic ocean, no El Niño, and no hydrological cycle, and it was tuned to give the result it gave. Most of what goes on in the real world of significance that causes the relationship in the paper is ENSO.

We have already rebutted Lindzen’s work on exactly this point. The clouds respond to ENSO, not the other way round [see: Trenberth, K. E., J. T. Fasullo, C. O'Dell, and T. Wong, 2010: Relationships between tropical sea surface temperatures and top-of-atmosphere radiation. Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L03702, doi:10.1029/2009GL042314.]

During ENSO there is a major uptake of heat by the ocean during the La Niña phase and the heat is moved around and stored in the ocean in the tropical western Pacific, setting the stage for the next El Niño, as which point it is redistributed across the tropical Pacific. The ocean cools as the atmosphere responds with characteristic El Niño weather patterns forced from the region that influence weather patterns world wide. Ocean dynamics play a major role in moving heat around, and atmosphere-ocean interaction is a key to the ENSO cycle.

None of those processes are included in the Spencer model. . ."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Just Put the Model Down, Roy
Barry Bickmore | July 26, 2011

“For the past few years, Roy Spencer has had a love affair, of sorts, with “simple climate models”. After all, who needs some fancy-schmancy global circulation model (GCM) when you can boil down the main features (energy in and energy out) to a simple “1-box” or “zero-dimensional” model that you can run on a spreadsheet?
{...}
“In this case, Spencer wants to use simple climate models to estimate equilibrium climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2. Let’s look back and see how he’s done with that so far. . .”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Global Warming Debunked! Or… not.
By Michael D. Lemonick ~ July 28th, 2011

"The headline on Forbes.com, highlighted on the Drudgereport, is just too juicy: "New NASA Data," it says, "Blow Gaping Hole in Global Warming Alarmism."

"As many of the scientists I know say in response to an eyebrow-raising claim, "Important... if true."

"It's the "if" part that's problematic here. First, the Forbes headline is way more sensational than anything Dr. Roy Spencer actually says in his new paper. As Climate Central chief scientist Phil Duffy says:

"The paper itself is far less aggressive in its claims than the Forbes article is. The paper's abstract, for example concludes:

“It is concluded that atmospheric feedback diagnosis of the climate system remains an unsolved problem, due primarily to the inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in satellite radiative budget observations”

This is hardly a sweeping claim!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Climate Change Debunked? Not So Fast
LiveScience Senior Writer ~ 28 July 2011
Stephanie Pappas

“New research suggesting that cloud cover, not carbon dioxide, causes global warming is getting buzz in climate skeptic circles. But mainstream climate scientists dismissed the research as unrealistic and politically motivated.

"It is not newsworthy," Daniel Murphy, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cloud researcher, wrote in an email to LiveScience.

“The study, published July 26 in the open-access online journal Remote Sensing, got public attention when a writer for The Heartland Institute, a libertarian think-tank that promotes climate change skepticism, wrote for Forbes magazine that the study disproved the global warming worries of climate change "alarmists."

“However, mainstream climate scientists say that the argument advanced in the paper is neither new nor correct. The paper's author, University of Alabama, Huntsville researcher Roy Spencer, is a climate change skeptic and controversial figure within the climate research community.

"He's taken an incorrect model, he's tweaked it to match observations, but the conclusions you get from that are not correct," Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, said of Spencer's new study.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedback”
RealClimate.org
Guest commentary by Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo— mike @ 29 July 2011

“The hype surrounding a new paper by Roy Spencer and Danny Braswell is impressive (see for instance Fox News); unfortunately the paper itself is not. News releases and blogs on climate denier web sites have publicized the claim from the paper’s news release that “Climate models get energy balance wrong, make too hot forecasts of global warming”. The paper has been published in a journal called Remote sensing which is a fine journal for geographers, but it does not deal with atmospheric and climate science, and it is evident that this paper did not get an adequate peer review.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Climate Scientists Debunk Latest Bunk by Denier Roy Spencer
ThinkProgress.org
Joe Romm ~ Jul 29, 2011

“It bears repeating that Spencer committed one of the most egregious blunders in the history of remote sensing — committing multiple errors in analyzing the satellite data and creating one of the enduring denier myths, that the satellite data didn’t show the global warming that the surface temperature data did.

“It also bears repeating that Spencer wrote this month, “I view my job a little like a legislator, supported by the taxpayer, to protect the interests of the taxpayer and to minimize the role of government.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

DiscoverMagazine.com

"No, new data does not “blow a gaping hole in global warming alarmism”

"I received a few emails, tweets, and comments on the blog yesterday asking about an Op/Ed article in Forbes magazine that claims that new NASA data will "blow [a] gaping hole in global warming alarmism".

"Except, as it turns out, not so much. The article is just so much hot air and climate scientists say the paper on which it’s based is fundamentally flawed and flat-out wrong.

"It’s clear after reading just a few words that this article is hugely biased. The use of the word "alarmist" and its variants appeared no fewer than 14 times. . ."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Climate Skeptics
Climate scientists blow gaping hole in ‘NASA data’ paper
Grist.org ~ Brad Johnson ~ July 29, 2011
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Roy Spencer's paper on climate sensitivity
Rebuttal written by Kevin Trenberth
SkepticalScience.com ~ 7-31-11

“Spencer's model is too simple, excluding important factors like ocean dynamics, and he treats cloud feedbacks as forcings. There is no merit to his paper.
{...}
“To help interpret the results, Spencer uses a simple model. But the simple model used by Spencer is too simple (Einstein says that things should be made as simple as possible but not simpler): well this has gone way beyond being too simple. The model has no realistic ocean, no El Niño, and no hydrological cycle, and it was tuned to give the result it gave.

“Most of what goes on in the real world of significance that causes the relationship in the paper is ENSO. We have already rebutted Lindzen’s work on exactly this point. The clouds respond to ENSO, not the other way round [see: Trenberth, K. E., J. T. Fasullo, C. O'Dell, and T. Wong, 2010: Relationships between tropical sea surface temperatures and top-of-atmosphere radiation. Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L03702]”

Forbes.com, Heartland... JamesTaylor's censored discussion "global warming is good for food crops." Say what?

2011-08-01T01:41:00.012-06:00

Recently the media has gone all a twitter with the latest global warming hype. This time the headline reads Roy Spencer: “New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism.”

In marketing Roy Spencer's paper Heartland's senior fellow for environment policy and managing editor of Environment & Climate News has been given the Forbes.com podium where he has made some very myopic comments regarding the robust condition of world agriculture...

Since my series of thoughtful questions posted to the Forbes.com discussion forum - the one concerned with Heartland Institute’s James Taylor’s marketing of Roy Spencer’s latest study - have been languishing for an inordinate amount of hours, days in the Forbes/Taylor moderator limbo, I’ve decided to post them over here.

{For the the record, I have corrected typos and added a couple additional comments.}
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mr. Taylor,
You invited thoughtful science based critique and I hope you continue to allow me to present my case.

You made the following claims supported by links:

“4. I am surprised that the improvement in global soil moisture and the record recent crop production requires citation. It should be common knowledge by now. Oh wait, that’s right, the media is told they have to ignore “skeptical” scientists and studies. So, here you are:
Re. soil moisture: (A) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.1061/abstract" and
(B) ScienceDirect.com and
(C) http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_data.html (all peer-reviewed, mind you, except for the NOAA data – please let me know if you don’t consider knowable an acceptable source).

Re. crop production: During the past decade record per-acre yields have been recorded for nearly every important U.S. crop. During the past five years alone, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, record per-acre yields have been registered for barley, beans, canola, corn, cotton, flaxseed, oats, peanuts, potatoes, rice, sorghum, soybeans, sugarbeets, sunflowers, and wheat.
 Global crop yields have also registered spectacular growth as global temperatures have warmed. Global grain harvests have nearly tripled since 1961. As is the case in the U.S., nearly every important global crop has attained record productivity during the past five years, including the Big Three corn, rice, and wheat crops.
It’s all available here:
(D) http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/AgProductivity/ and
(E) http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5539 and
(F) http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5540 and
(G) http://westernfarmpress.com/rice/record-production-2010-rice-crop and
(H) http://www.agrimoney.com/news/global-wheat-harvest-to-set-record-by-a-margin–58.html

===============================

Mr. Taylor, I’m glad you inspired me to look at those links and become better informed on this aspect of global warming. I should also admit I was surprised by the vigor of recent grain production numbers. Though a closer reading of your links does clearly show that past success is no guarantor to future resilience.

For instance, (link A) was an abstract from 2004 reporting decreased “pan evaporation” in many parts USA and Australia. Considering the increased levels of atmospheric humidity and the flood events these past years I wouldn’t be surprising to see another such report.

But considering the droughts happening in the Horn of Africa, Texas, France, UK, China and other locations it should be admitted there are also drying areas, with their local impacts, which also deserve to be acknowledged. Here’s a map

also this

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

quoting (link B): “Data are often incomplete in spatial and temporal domains and regional analyses are variable and sometimes contradictory; however, the weight of evidence indicates an ongoing intensification of the water cycle. In contrast to these trends, the empirical evidence to date does not consistently support an increase in the frequency or intensity of tropical storms and floods.”

hmmm.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

James, I have no clue what (link C) is doing on your list because it is one scary review of drought history.

There is this:

“A number of climate model simulations for doubled CO2 conditions suggest an increased frequency of drought in midcontinental regions (e.g. Gregory et al, 1997 , Mearns et al, 2000) whereas other model simulations and recent decadal trends in the instrumental record suggest wetter conditions, at least in the short term, due to an intensification of the hydrologic cycle associated with warmer sea surface temperatures.

"Better constrained answers to the question of the severity of future droughts requires improved understanding and modeling of the processes underlying the drought behavior exhibited in both the instrumental and the paleoclimate records.”

~ ~ ~

This article seemed little on comfort and big on BEWARE warnings. So why does Heartland remain so glib about this concern?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

quoting (link D): “Major findings of the data include: Agricultural output growth slowed during the 1999-2001 period and contracted -1.93 percent in 2002 due to a severe drought throughout most of the western United States.

"Accordingly, measured productivity growth dropped to -1.45% in 2002. But the return of favorable weather in 2003 and 2004 led to sharp increases in output and productivity, with productivity growing by 4.0 percent in 2003 and 5.7 percent in 2004. On average, productivity slowed for the 2000-2007 period, by 0.72 percent per year, and bounced back to 5.89 percent in 2008 (see table).”
~ ~ ~

James, notice how central weather is in this report? When the weather works right, crops are great, but when struck with weather extremes losses are immediate.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One thing that struck me is how you proclaim: “Global crop yields have also registered spectacular growth as global temperatures have warmed. Global grain harvests have nearly tripled since 1961.”

What an example of beautiful spin. You strategically leave the taste on the palette of “global warming betters harvest yields.” But, make no mention of the actual drivers: fertilizer, irrigation, transportation and genetics. These are the factors that revolutionized agriculture production and outputs during the past century and decades. Why is that ignored?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mr. Taylor,
Seems to me you are working very hard on an assumption that weather patterns will be what they’ve always been ~ this in the face of overwhelming evidence pointing at qualitative changes in global climate patterns. Quite different from what society has become accustomed to over these past few millennia.

Sure, sure it is more comforting relating to a past we know, but it’s monstrously dangerous to ignore an impending future just because we may not want to know it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

quoting (link F): “Wheat harvests increased modestly {...} with near perfect weather nurturing strong harvests in India, the EU, and the United States. Australia, however, normally the source of one third of world exports, faced lower crop prospects and depleted exportable supplies. And unfavorable weather meant a reduced harvest in China, the world’s second largest producer.
{...}
“Important wheat exporters like Ukraine and Russia have imposed export restrictions to ensure a sufficient domestic supply .”
~ ~ ~

Yes, some numbers are good but again, notice how crucial benign weather was to the success of crops? To say nothing of the ominous closing of that article. Why does Heartland and JT turn away from those facts?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(link G) was from last year, but looks like rice is rockin these days, so that’s great.

However, the news isn’t near as upbeat as JT would lead us to believe:

UK, 22nd July 2011, by Agrimoney.com
"Dryness cuts prospects for New South Wales wheat"

"Australia's top producing state last season may face a slump of one-third in its wheat harvest this year after dry and cold weather held back early development, leaving crops backward and "thin"."
~ ~ ~

and this
UK, 14th June 2011, by Agrimoney.com
"Wet leaves Canada wheat hopes below even 2010's"

Canadian farmers are, for a second successive season, to suffer a "very substantial" loss of acres to wet weather, with the wheat harvest on course to fall below last year's weak crop.
"The Canadian Wheat Board, in its first forecast for Canada's Prairies, responsible for the great majority of the country's crop production, said that 6m-8m acres would be lost thanks to rains which in some parts have left farmers with less than 10% of crops planted."
~ ~ ~

and this
UK, 18th March 2011, by Agrimoney.com
"Russia follows Canada and cuts grain harvest hopes"

"Russia has followed Canada in cutting hopes for this year's grains harvest even before spring crops have been sown, after warnings of a squeeze on credit and over the quality of seed.
"Viktor Zubkov, the Russian deputy prime minister with responsibility for farming, said the grains crop in what was one of the world's biggest exporting countries until drought struck last year would come in at 84m-85m tonnes."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In looking up Heartland JT’s links I found some frightfully fascinating information that he had ignored. For example:

“Climate change curbs crops
Warming has already lowered yields of wheat and corn.”
Published online 5 May 2011 | Nature ~

by Nicola Jones
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Global Crop Damage Timeline
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Farmers face losses during record-breaking drought season (7/30/11)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

China drought raises questions about climate change
By Chris Buckley
LAKE HONGHU, China | Fri Jun 3, 2011

(Reuters) - China's drought along its biggest river, the Yangtze, is for some scientists a demonstration of how global warming could increasingly disrupt the complex dance of air flows, rains and waterways that feeds dams and farming heartlands.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

France on drought alert after hottest spring since 1900 (June 1, 2011)

By RFI: “France is now on heatwave alert after the hottest spring since 1900 has left water tables down and farmers struggling to feed their livestock. The Health Ministry has put into effect level one of an anti-drought plan that was drawn up after 15,000 people died in the long-hot summer of 2003.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

U.S. Cotton Crop Projection Reduced Despite Larger 2011 Area

The U.S. cotton production forecast for 2011 was reduced once again this month and is now projected at 16 million bales, 1 million bales below the June projection and 2.1 million below the 2010 crop. Despite increased planted area as indicated in the June Acreage report, "exceptional" drought conditions in Texas--where most of the increase was noted--are expected to lead to a record U.S. abandonment rate and reduced production in 2011.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Here’s an interesting mixed bag that further underscores our dependence upon benign weather patterns

Argentine Soy Survives Drought ~ July 31, 2011

Argentine soybeans withstood a 2010-2011 season of erratic rainfall to register respectable yields for the first crop.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For a look at global conditions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The take away message from all this is that Mr. Taylor of Heartland Institute deliberately portrays an unrealistically rosy picture, cherry picking the good news and willfully ignoring that which doesn't fit his debate needs.

I myself find it a sin that folks like that have put their agenda driven debate points above the desire to learn and understand about our planet's climate dynamics.

Forbes.com, Heartland... JamesTaylor's censored discussion re. "New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism"

2011-07-31T23:54:00.003-06:00

Recently the media has gone all a twitter with the latest global warming hype. This time the headline reads Roy Spencer: “New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism.”

From the looks of it one James Taylor the senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News is being the PR shepherd of this latest attempt to confuse people. Over at Forbes.com Mr. Taylor has challenged all comers with a sneer. Yet thoughtful, polite if pointed posts to this blog are being lost in moderator limo.

Since my series of thoughtful questioning posts to the Forbes.com discussion forum - the one concerned with Heartland Institute’s James Taylor’s marketing of Roy Spencer’s latest study - have been languishing for an inordinate amount of hours, days in the Forbes/Taylor moderator limbo, I’ve decided to post them over here...

{For the the record, I have corrected typos and added a couple additional comments.} The following are my first two posts combined

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forbes.com blog ~ 07/29/11
Your comment is awaiting moderation. (Forbes.com blog)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

citizenschallenge writes:
Please allow some comments regarding early comments by Mr. Taylor:

JamesTaylor-Heartland #1. “Sea level rise has been decelerating and has barely risen at all since 2006.”

 ~ ~ ~

 However there is this:  http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ 
~
 Also, Real Climate has an informative article regarding flaws in the claim of decelerating sea levels.  
~
 Considering JTs comments regarding Antarctic ice “extent” this article is enlightening indeed:  “Sea Level Rise Less from Greenland, More from Antarctica, Than Expected During Last Interglacial” {ScienceDaily ~ July 29, 2011}

 ===============

 JamesTaylor-Heartland #2a. “Arctic sea ice has indeed declined of late, due largely to changes in local wind patterns (unrelated to global warming) that have pushed sea ice into the Fram Strait, where it is sucked south into the North Atlantic Ocean. In the southern hemisphere...” 

~ ~ ~

 James, on what basis do you claim wind patterns are free from global climate influence?

Aren’t these wind patterns influenced by the jet stream? Doesn’t the ENSO initiate cascading effect that are felt globally.

What about the ocean water being pushed around, that water has been documented to be warming, thus influenced by global warming.

Please spend some time viewing some of those incredible satellite based global weather time lapses. This isn’t like the cold war, where border could be defined.

I get scolded for calling it a global heat engine, but that’s basically what it is, what will it take for folks like you to get it?
 ===============

JamesTaylor-Heartland #2b. “... by contrast, Antarctic sea "ice extent" has been robust, setting numerous records during the past several years.”

 ~ ~ ~

Why don’t I ever hear "skeptics" clearly explain the difference between ice “extent” and "volume" or "mass"?

When talking about Antarctic’s ice extent why not describe some of the observed dynamics that are causing the bottom of our globe to behave as it is?

Why not point out Antarctic ice mass is dropping (Velicogna 2009), why not mention the West Peninsula dynamics and potential continued increasing ice loss?

Why such a one dimensional presentation – check out this expose' of the spectrum of dynamic occurring in the Antarctic?
Or, with a bit more direct authority, there’s this interesting primer from the NSIDC.
===============

JamesTaylor-Heartland #3. “If carbon dioxide levels are higher than they have been in at least 650,000 years, this rebuts your premise that carbon dioxide levels drive global temperatures. For most of the past 10,000 years (since the last ice age epoch ended) temperatures were warmer than they are today. Moreover, in each of the other interglacial warm periods during the past 650,000 years, temperatures rose higher than today.”

~ ~ ~

It is disingenuous to imply climatologists claim CO2 is THE driving factor in climate change.

JT knows full well that CO2 is one of several major driving factors, which work in concert with a few other major climate drivers, such as the sun’s insolation, Earth's orbital/rotational variations, volcanism, tectonic conditions and how that played out in CO2/rock chemistry.

What some folks so often try to strive to obscure is that these facts are known quantities and yes they are playing a known roll in today’s climate situation - however, today’s situation is unique! One where anthropogenic CO2 (and other GHGs) have been injected into the atmosphere in incomprehensible quantities above and beyond the background natural steady-state flux.

Yet here JT try's to conflate the planet’s conditions of 600,000 years ago with today’s conditions. This is simply inappropriate and disingenuous.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

JamesTaylor-Heartland #4. “Finally, and most importantly, even if your assertions had been accurate, they would not have proven that people are creating a global warming crisis. They would only have provided evidence that the planet is warming, which I agree it is.

“Considering that the Little Ice Age, which lasted from roughly 1300 to 1900 AD, brought the coldest planetary temperatures during the past 10,000 years, it is a very good thing that temperatures are rising.

“Indeed, deserts are shrinking, forests are expanding, growing seasons are lengthening, soil moisture is improving, crop production is setting records, etc., etc.”

~ ~ ~

The fact that CO2 and other GHGs have known thermo enhancing qualities, and that society continues injecting -> unabated - better than two gigatons a month into our thin atmosphere is simple physics! Yet, folks offer acceptance with faint praise then sweep this knowledge under the carpet with another distraction, and go on as though nothing untoward was happening to our future.

Worst is folks can stand there with a straight face and claim nothing untoward has occurred to our weather trends over these past few decades. The selectivity, to say nothing of the quality of some of those selective "skeptical papers" is a tragedy that underscores how profoundly disconnected with the foundations of our Earthly existence the right wing, religious, free market, science battling mindset has become.

What NCAR's Kevin Trenberth actually said at 2004 Harvard News Conference

2011-07-04T11:35:00.007-06:00

This post is sort of an addendum to a post at SkepticForum.com regarding the echo-chambers accusations, fueled by Chris Landsea's IPCC resignation letter, that Kevin Trenberth has lied. Interestingly, when reading the actual transcript I can't find where, or what Trenberth was supposed to have lied about.

I went through the transcript and culled out important statements. Since I can't share so many quotes at SkepticForum, I figured I'd post the collection over here in case anyone wants to read what Trenberth actually had to say as opposed to just accepting others agenda driven mis-characterizations...
{Although if you have the time it would be much better to read the whole thing, click below}

Hurricanes and Global Warming News Conference

Center for Health and Global Environment
Harvard Medical School
October 21, 2004
Highlights from the Verbatim Transcript

Epstein: (medical doctor trained in tropical public health and Associate Director for the Center for Health and Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.)

{10/21/04 news conference - 2}

Four things we know are true from the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We know the climate is changing. Two, that humans are having an influence. Three, biological systems are responding on all continents, and weather is becoming more extreme. This alone, these statements, tell us that by deduction we've got to understand all events that we are seeing in terms of climate change and natural variability.

We cannot isolate one event and say "Oh, this is natural. This is climate." Everything is a function. I know this may sound new and heretical but that's the conclusion that climate and baseline is changing.

Since 2001, we know a lot more about the system. We know more about the deep ocean warming throughout the world. We know that surface pressures and winds are affected and polar winds are affected so that gradients are set up and so that storms can become more intense and are seeing these swings back and forth from dry periods to wet, et cetera.

McCarthy: (professor of Oceanography at Harvard University and as mentioned in the introduction co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group 2 on impacts in the last assessment, which concluded its work in 2001)

{10/21/04 news conference - 3}

We know that the earth's temperature and precipitation patterns are changing as a result of changes — not only those attributable to natural variability but also attributable to the greenhouse gas condition that's accumulating in our atmosphere.

On every continent it is now evident that there are impacts from these changes in
temperature and precipitation and while some of those changes, some of those impacts, rather, are seen as positive, many of them are negative and disruptive. We see this in every aspect of natural ecosystems, but also in human socio-economic systems.

{...} In addition, there are increasingly intense precipitation events. Many of these we have just heard reference to, but similarly the projections for the future show that this is going to become increasingly common.

{...} The one aspect of this ongoing climate change that continues to receive less attention than it deserves is how the warmer world will lead to more extremes in weather and particularly these heavy precipitation events, extreme wind events, and more hot, dry periods as well.

{10/21/04 news conference - 5}

Trenberth: (from NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Lead author on the 2001 IPCC report for Working Group One.)

Let me focus then on the science of climate change and the physical aspects of the climate change that are going on. The first key point, as Jim McCarthy said, is that the atmospheric composition is changing due to human activities. There's a buildup of carbon dioxide; it's around 31, 32% higher than pre-industrial levels. Global warming is happening and there is a lot of evidence for that, as others have already stated, and the global mean temperature is increasing.

One thing I would pick on, in particular, is that global sea level has risen about an inch and a quarter in the past ten years. This is good information — the first time we've had global information from satellites using a process called altimetry. Now most of this rise in sea level is due to expansion of the ocean as it warms up, and maybe 20 to 35% is from melting of glaciers.

So the sea surface temperature is rising globally. It's been about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the 20th century and it's risen in particular in recent times in the Atlantic and other regions, of course, that affect hurricanes. At the same time, water vapor amounts have increased and the empirical evidence suggests that water vapor in the atmosphere goes up about 10% [7% overall] for every degree Celsius—or say about 2 degrees Fahrenheit—increase in sea surface temperature in the atmosphere.

{10/21/04 news conference - 6}

And of course this is the fuel for the hurricanes and it also means that the hurricanes end up dropping a lot more precipitation and rainfall as a result. And so the environment in which these hurricanes form is changing and it's changing in ways that provide more fuel for them through the water vapor and the changes in sea surface temperature.

And another example aside from the ones over near Japan is that on late March 2004
there was a hurricane in the South Atlantic off the coast of Brazil. This was the first of its kind and it's clear evidence that things are changing.

In general, the changes in the tropics are such that more storm activity is favored, but it's very difficult to say whether or not these are going to be individual thunderstorms or hurricanes. And in general throughout the United States in the 20th century there was an increase in heavy rainfall events of about 7% and very heavy events, which is the top 1% of all events, were up about 20% in the 20th century. And so this is an indication that in general rainfall events are apt to increase.

There are several factors that go into making hurricanes. They're really a collective of thunderstorms and they need a disturbance that hangs together. And we are not able to say what global warming is likely to do to that, and so there could be a trade off between individual thunderstorms versus actual hurricanes. It also requires—this actually requires a favorable atmospheric circulation.

This relates to things like whether the wind will blow it apart or wind shear will cause it to collapse before the hurricane actually forms. And we can't say anything really about the tracks which make the hurricanes hit the U.S. or miss the U.S.—whether they [make] landfall or not. What we can say is that the high sea surface temperatures of water vapor make for more intense storms and so this is consistent with the evidence that we're seeing. And so this is the main link with global warming that we can establish at the current time.

And so this is supported also by the modeling evidence and the theoretical evidence.
There was a certain amount of activity regarding a paper that came out recently by a group headed by Tom Knutson at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. And that supports the idea that indeed hurricanes are apt to become more intense in the future. So a key consequence, I think, is certainly perhaps increased damage from winds, but I think the biggest consequence is likely to be more heavy rains and flooding.

Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY: Is what you're saying now much of a departure from what the IPCC report said three years ago, four years ago?

Trenberth: I think the evidence is mounting as Jim McCarthy suggested, and I refer to the hurricane off of the coast of Brazil. You heard also from Matthias that there is unprecedented activity out in parts of the Pacific, the far western Pacific, and now we have a series of seasons, very vigorous seasons ever since 1995. Let's see, I think seven of those—seven of the last ten years—has been above normal in terms of hurricanes. So this kind of evidence is pointing more in the direction that these extremes are occurring and are having a real impact on society.

Epstein: If I just second that and say — yes, we knew these things as of 2001, but now we've learned a lot more. Ruth Curry at Woods Hole [Oceanographic Institution] has published a paper showing that the tropics in general are becoming warmer and saltier as they evaporate and we're seeing changes towards the poles of fresher and cooler water. So there's a dynamic in the Atlantic Ocean, it's the same thing with all the oceans in terms of changes in this distribution of heat and salt.

And so that creates a belt out of which these hurricanes can be fueled. In general we're seeing more outliers, and that's what I was describing — more events that are even greater than one or two standard deviations from the mean. Like the heat wave last summer, like this state of hurricanes.

{10/21/04 news conference - 8}

McCarthy: I would just like to make one additional comment. I think one way to answer that question is, what we're seeing is happening more quickly than had been projected just four or five years ago, and that's true of the rate of ice loss in Greenland, the rate of loss of ice in Antarctica, but also the extreme events.

And if you look at the data the four of the last six years are now the warmest years on record. So, as we look ahead and we anticipate these changes, the temptation is to think that they'll be smooth changes. But if anything they're accelerating and they are more irregular than we had thought likely and therefore more disruptive.

Moderator: Is there a follow-up question there?
O'Driscoll: Just a brief one. Again, for many of you, for laypeople out here who may look at this and say, "Well, couldn't you chalk this up to just natural variation and deviation?" I mean, it's an awfully short period of time we're talking about here where we've seen these admittedly extreme changes. What's to say that it won't revert in coming years?

Trenberth: That's a very good point, and certainly in the Atlantic there's no guarantee that this is going to continue, because in the Atlantic there is large, natural decade-to-decade variability in hurricane activity and we know the way in which the ocean works in the Atlantic is that it's apt to favor this kind of thing. There will be on and off periods.

But at the same time within that, now superimposed on that natural variability, is also this longer-term trend that we associate with global warming. Even a year-to-year basis — there can be a year with more hurricanes or fewer hurricanes, depending on things like El Niño events in the tropical Pacific.

And indeed, as we've had more hurricanes in the Atlantic in recent years, there
have actually been fewer hurricanes in the far Eastern Pacific — you know, off of the west coast of Mexico and so on—and so there is a competition around the tropics as to where hurricanes tend to occur, and this natural variability is certainly going to continue.

Usha McFarling, Los Angeles Times: Elaborating on that last question, I'm just—can you be clear, are you—I know in the Knutson paper they are talking about perhaps increases of 5% of wind speed in 80 years,

{10/21/04 news conference - 9}

but this stuff doesn't seem to imply that what we saw in Florida may be due to climate change because of warmer sea surface temps. And I'm wondering — the hurricane researchers are saying what happened in Florida, they don't believe is linked to climate change—it's definitely more that decadal variability and just bad luck with the tracking of storms towards Florida instead of out to sea or elsewhere. So, maybe if you could be clear on what—what are we saying here? Are we saying that what we saw in Florida may be an indication on what's in the future, or are people implying that perhaps Florida was caused by climate change and we're already seeing the changes now instead of 80 years from now? Thank you.

Trenberth: That's a very good question, and I think one of the reasons we've got this press conference is to perhaps try to add a little bit to other statements that have been made by hurricane forecasters. Now as I mentioned before, there is a lot of natural variability and decadal variability in hurricanes, and as Matthias mentioned it's impossible in fact for researchers to tie an individual hurricane or even four hurricanes to global warming as such.

But as we... have mentioned, there is a much larger pattern going on and it's not just in the Atlantic but in the western Pacific and it's also other rainfall events, severe weather events across the United States, and so on. And so it's part of a larger pattern which is consistent with the sorts of things we expect with global warming.

With global warming a lot of the heat goes into driving the hydrological cycle, evaporating moisture, putting moisture into the atmosphere, which then gets rained out and there's more moisture lying around. Then the rain events tend to be heavier. And at the same time in places where it's not raining, there is more evaporation and so the droughts tend to be stronger as well.

And so ironically you can have stronger rainfall events and stronger droughts at exactly the same time and caused by the same phenomenon. And of course we're well aware that there's a major drought going on in the southwestern parts of the country. And so, it's just larger context that we thought was missing and needed to be brought to bear to indicate that this is a real risk and it's something we are going to have to deal with as we move into the future.

Epstein: {...} what Kevin's comments help us understand is that we can understand the dynamics under them. They're making sense in terms of the warming

{10/21/04 news conference - 10}

of the ocean, drying out of land. As surfaces of the ocean and the land heat up it changes the pressure and the pressure gradients that's changing wind speeds. As I mentioned, we're now seeing increased wind speeds around both poles. So we're seeing some changes in temperature and pressure and pressure gradients and wind and weather patterns that are consistent with the changes we know to be associated with warming of the ocean and climate change.

Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post: I think you mentioned it briefly, but I just wanted to check again. Can you just explain the dynamics when sea temperature, sea surface temperatures, rise, then water vapor is increased? In other words there is more water evaporating and how does that shift the dynamics again? Can you just go over that one more time?

Trenberth: Certainly. Well, we know from a very fundamental physical law that as you warm up the atmosphere it can hold more moisture and so if you keep the relative humidity constant then for every 1 degree—I'm sorry this is in Celsius—1 degree Celsius there's a 7% increase in the water-holding capacity.

Now empirically, when we look at what's going on over the North Atlantic, for every 1 degree Celsius increase in sea surface temperature it's actually about a 10% increase in the water vapor in the lowest 20,000 feet of the atmosphere. So we take the column integral, it's not just the humidity of the surface we're looking at, but also throughout the lower part of the atmosphere.

And so that has gone up by about 5%, for instance, in the last fifteen years from the very good measurements that we've got now over the ocean from an instrument called the—well, it's a microwave instrument—and so the water-holding capacity goes up and the empirical evidence suggests that the actual amount of moisture in the atmosphere goes up, and this is, of course, the fuel for any thunderstorms and tropical storms.

Epstein: As I learned from Kevin you've got a push-pull on the water cycle. As water warms, the oceans warm, they evaporate faster. As the atmosphere warms, it can hold more water vapor. So water is warming, water vapor's rising, and ice is melting. These are the three parts of the hydrological cycle that are changing.

{10/21/04 news conference - 11}

Trenberth: Yes, certainly. If you just look at what's going on in the Atlantic the record has a lot of variability from year to year. Some of that's associated with El Niño—this is Kevin Trenberth from NCAR again—and also there's this decadal variability which may well be associated with things like this thermohaline circulation. That was the change in circulation throughout the Atlantic that was a key in the movie called "The Day After Tomorrow." And so that's a form of natural variability, but it may well also be affected by global warming.

And if you simply take that narrow view, then it's very hard to find a global warming signature in the record. And we're suggesting here that maybe the main signature is not so much in the frequency, the number of hurricanes, but rather more in the intensity of hurricanes and the very heavy rainfall events. Certainly there is a very clear signature in the United States, and east of the Rockies in particular, where heavy rainfall events are increasing and a good fraction, a fraction, of those are associated with hurricane events.

Chris Crisler, Florida Today: We're rather hurricane-centered down here as you might imagine, and given—you do seem to be talking about a broader trend than perhaps an increase in more extreme events. So, I just want to clarify—you can't be more specific about, say, number of storms, but storms we do get might be more intense, and you can't be more specific about tracks necessarily at this point.

Trenberth: One of the things that we did say in the 2001 report is that certainly the environment in the tropics becomes one which favors more storm activity in a general sense, but it's very difficult for us given our current knowledge to say whether it's going to be a whole lot of individual thunderstorms or a collective of thunderstorms where they get organized into a tropical storm or a hurricane.

And it could be that as we move into the future that we end up with a whole lot of thunderstorms, but of course Florida gets a lot of thunderstorm activity as well, and so you can also expect that kind of thing, as well.

{10/21/04 news conference - 17}

McCarthy: {...} One of the realizations of the late '90s work that is summarized in the IPCC documents is that that's not a choice we can make any longer. We have embarked upon a path and are now at a point where these impacts are all about us and will continue to arise. Many of them negative, some perhaps positive. There certainly are some positive ones, but it's the negative ones we are talking about today that are so disruptive to lives, livelihood, and property, and indeed much of what we have done in the way we have used our habitable areas has contributed to this.

Moderator: You've been listening to a tele-news event sponsored by the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Related sites on the World Wide Web:
Experts to Warn Global Warming Likely to Continue Spurring More Outbreaks of
Intense Hurricane Activity (news release)
http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge/hurricanespress.html

Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School
http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge

National Center for Atmospheric Research
http://www.ucar.edu

Swiss Re
http://www.swissre.com

Playing Games With Global Warming. . . an essay

2011-06-03T02:38:00.004-06:00

This is the final version of an essay who's working title was:
"Mann's "hockey stick graph" and McIntyre et al. examined."
Printed in the Four Corners Free Press June 2011 issue.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
{859 words}
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Perhaps the most enduring argument AGW “skeptics” use against the scientific consensus regarding manmade global warming is attacking something called the “Mann hockey stick graph.”

What’s a hockey stick got to do with understanding global warming? Well, it goes back to the 1980s and 90s. Following a flood of new atmospheric and Earth Observation data scientists began to search for ways of discovering past climate changes in order to put the new information into historical perspective.

Scientists realized there were many natural “proxies” that recorded climate conditions as they grew. Trees, glaciers, all kinds of geologic depositions. They reasoned that it should be possible to learn how to tease out climate information from such proxies.

Michael Mann and a team of fellow researchers focused on tree-ring proxy studies. In 1998 they released a graph reflecting the tree-ring data they had been working on for years. In 1999 their graph was extended back to cover a thousand years.

It didn’t actually look like a hockey stick, it was a bunch of waves with a radical uptick at the end.The “hockey stick” appears when one draws an average-line through the main body of past small and medium fluctuations before getting to the recent steep increase.

Basically, the graph underscored the profound influence our energy consuming society is having. Thus it became a target of scorn for all who wanted to deny responsibility in climate change.

Republicans, such as Senator Inhofe (R-Okla.), really got carried away proclaiming that the science was doctored in a broad scientific plot to unduly alarm the public about the seriousness of us injecting over a couple billion tons of greenhouse gases into our thin atmosphere month after month.

They claimed it was part of a conspiracy to hobble growth of our consumer/industrial/military/oil complex. Some even claimed: scientists wanted to promote a one world government. Sounds a bit silly, but so long as the Republican mass media machine focuses on such distractions, it leaves no time for considering the real issues facing all of us.

Into this PR effort stepped a Canadian mining engineer, investment promoter, statistician Stephen McIntyre, who went over the team’s work with a fine toothed comb. McIntyre did find some minor flaws in how Mann et al. processed their calculations.

One might think no problem, a further refinement, considering that McIntyre’s work altered the look of the graph by less than 1%. This was science after all; one of its cornerstones is finding and correcting mistakes. Although it should be noted, even this tiny correction is in dispute.

Yet the denier echo-chamber, and McIntyre himself, presented his tiny adjustment as somehow overturning the whole field of climatology ~ stuff that’s pure political propaganda far removed from real facts.

Such denialism ignores the fact that since 2000 dozens of independent teams worldwide have been studying many different proxies and without exception the basic “hockey stick shape” emerges from the data. That shape is telling us that our world is on a trajectory of warming not seen since deep geologic time. And we are the ones propelling the change.

A key part of the hockey stick myth is that it’s hiding a Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. But, it doesn’t, they are reflected in the graph. More importantly, those events were regional and driven by a combination of factors scientists have come to understand: vulcanism; solar activity; ocean current oscillations among others.

We should be clear that these factors are playing a role in today’s situation. Volcanoes have been adding their cooling aerosols; our sun is at a historic minimum, and ocean oscillations continue to exert their regional influence.

What’s so different about today’s situation is that before industrialization, CO2 levels hovered around 280 ppm for over 400,000 years, giving our biosphere the stability to develop into this cornucopia we have learned to exploit so well.

But with industrialization atmospheric CO2 broke free from the historic trend and started going uphill, driven by our society’s increasing consumption of coal, oil, gasoline and other carbon based energy sources. Currently, our atmosphere has surpassed 390 ppm, a level unexperienced on Earth in over 10 million years.

Today all but the most committed quacks agree that CO2 is indeed a potent greenhouse gas and a significant regulator of our planet’s temperature. While there isn’t, and can never be, absolute agreement on the exact amount of warming, those arguments are over fine details!

We should find no comfort in that uncertainty, since Earth observations are showing our planet changing much faster than scientific forecasts predicted. Yes, this is cause for alarm.

While Republicans have turned this into a parlor game of who can best manipulate the political debate ~ the harsh real down to Earth consequences are already being felt across the planet and they promise only to get worse as Republican statesmen and business leaders with their media machine continue their contemptuous political game of manufacturing willful ignorance.

When are we the people going to demand of our business leaders, politicians, media and we ourselves to stop allowing faith-based pipe-dreams to trump down to Earth realities?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If you see any value in this essay please do copy and share with others.

Unauthorized notes, ~ Ben Santer ~ The General Public: Why Such Resistance?

2011-05-23T10:49:00.005-06:00

Today I was asked if there's a transcript available of the Ben Santer talk. To the best of my knowledge there is none. However, when I hear an especially good lecture, I'll return to it and do some detailed note taking along with transcribing specially valuable sections... I find it an excellent learning exercise.

So below are my notes, transcribed sections are in "quotes," the rest is paraphrased, with any personal commentary in {brackets}.

It isn't as polished as it should be and unfortunately right now I don't have the time to invest, however at some point I will return and clean this up...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
YouTube Uploaded by StanfordUniversity on May 13, 2010
PhD. Ben Santer and the climate debate -
“The General Public: Why Such Resistance?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTsc3jV1Otw

(February 25, 2010) Ben Santer, a research scientist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, discusses the recent problems with the use of the freedom of information act for non-US citizens to demand complete records, including emails, on scientific research projects. Santer posits that this is a dangerous dilemma that will ultimately inhibit scientific research.  This course was originally presented in Stanford's Continuing Studies program.  Stanford University: http://www.stanford.edu/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTsc3jV1Otw

{ Schneider - Gives a little background to “the IPCC’s first ugly scene”
Ben Santer’s Report on the “Finger Prints” of human activity on climate.}

1:30 "Basically those finger prints pointed to a discernible impact of human activities on climate. This triggered a massively ugly scene, at the, it was the first ugly scene at the IPCC history at a plenary session. Which is where the hundreds of politicians get together and have to agree to the IPCC Summary For Policy Makers word for word. And the guy being attacked was him (Santer). So it was because of this chapter saying there was a “discernible impact”, though that word came out later ...

"The chief Saudi negotiator basically said this was bad science, tried to drive a wedge between north and south countries, was very effectively doing it. And there was what is called a Contact Group, which is where when you can not agree on the plenary, you go off and negotiate. We negotiated like all day to get this language right."

2:30 "Now the Saudis who made all the fuss and the Kuwaities never sent anybody. And they add many, many delegates. And this one guy from Kenya came, and he had actually proposed dropping the entire chapter because he believed the Saudi.... this was the southern solidarity. Now this guy, he was meteorologist, not a famous science star, came and he watch the entire day and changed his mind and decided the process was fair and open.

"So we go back and the normal practice in IPCC after a Contact Groups where the group agrees, is that the text is put up there on a screen. And it is pro-forma accepted because if you started fighting over it again you’d never get out.

"Well of course the Saudi’s immediately raise their hands and Al-Saban starts in: this is unacceptable to us."

3:15 "So Ben had the temerity, this mere scientist to say: “But, Sir your delegation made the most noise and you did not even have anyone at the group.
And El-Saban slams his fist on the table and (exclaims): I’m a representative of a sovereign country, you’re just a scientist, you can not talk to me like that and we’re a small delegation, we didn’t have time!"

3:35 "The Kenyan guy raises his flag, my stomach is in knots, and he get and says, I’m a small delegation, I’m it. But I was convinced by the Saudi’s that this was really important, so I went. I’m now satisfied the lead authors are correct and I withdraw my objection and urge everyone to vote for it. And it passed."

3:55 "Then the Wall Street Journal started. . . scientific cleansing
4:00 "Because in an IPCC report, every single meeting is about revising language. So at the direction of the plenary he (Dr. Santer) corrected the language, to which these guys at the Wall Street Journal redacted the components... that were caveats, therefore this was a distortion of that."

4:25 "So there’s this mister mild mannered Ben Santer the statistician, quiet guy on the block. All of a sudden now out there as this object of derision by these manufactured, trumped up charges of the ideology of no government control and the fossil fuel industry."

"Unfortunately for them, Ben very shortly thereafter got a MacArthur Genius Award... because this was the first scientific study really showing that there was a discernible impact of human activities on climate by good statistical testing. So Ben has now worked in many other areas. He’s shown why the satellite data measurements were valid, but not the way the original guys showed it. Why a series of recent papers now which purport to show why the mainstream is wrong should never have gotten through peer review, and so forth, for which he has been FOIA attacked, he’ll tell you all about that.
"So here mister mild manner will come up and tell you about life in the scientific fast lane is like when you hurt the interests of trillion dollar industries."

Ben Santer’s talk:
5:45 ...spending past four months defending friends and self
6:05 I going to tell you what has caused me the most personal concern... my concerns and personal difficulties
6:15 2008 paper...
6:20 sort of a morality... story about science, non-science, and non-sense
6:40 Satellite data... 1990... folks who did the original research suggest that the atmosphere was cooling... that was a huge problem, ... models... 7:10 how could the surface be warming and the air above it cooling?
7:30 This was a fundamental problem to the theory
7:40 Break history of the scientific problem
A brief history of the MSU debate (2000-2006)
MSU revisited: the claims by Douglass et al. (2007) and Singer et al. (2008)
Statistical issues
Douglass et al. and Santer et al. significance tests
Audits, FOIAs, and lessons learned

8:40 review of the statistical issue involved
“inconvenient observations” (James Schlesinger quote at 8:48 - claim no atmospheric warming proves no global warming.)
9:45 explaining the physics
10:15 University at Huntsville (UAH) observations and the great satellite debate
10:40 Constructing climate quality temperature records from satellite data... most difficult task
initially UAH - John Cristy and Roy Spencer late 90s another team started process this data.
Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) - a private company
Frank Wentz and Carl Mears
10:50 UAHs initial records indicated no tropospheric warming.
12:40 graph (1979-1904) of UAH satellite dataset implied that the troposphere cooled as the tropical surface warmed
13:10 a lots of squiggles - we knew why a bunch of ups and downs happened, what we didn’t understand was why the ground temperature record trended up, while the satellite troposphere measurements trended down.
13:30 RSS then looked at the same raw satellite data but produced a strikingly different graph, where both surface and troposphere temps trended up
14:15 Why did they get different results from identical data?
14:25 .. satellite orbital drift (14:30 graphic)
15:10 UAH was aware of this drift and has
This systematic drift in the time a satellite passes over a specific location needs to be accounted for, which the UAH did since the drift rate was known.

15:25 UAH “recognized that, that this was a problem, that they had to account for this drift effect, but they got the sign wrong, they literally got the sign wrong. They made a sign error in correcting for the effects of satellite orbital drift.”
15:40 Three papers published in Science partially resolved the “great MSU debate.”
“The Effect of Diurnal Correction on Satellite-Derived Lower Tropospheric Temperature”
“Radiosonde Daytime Biases and Late-20th Century Warming”
“Amplification of Surface Temperature Trends and Variability in the Tropical Atmosphere”
~~~
“Alabama group argued there was a conspiracy to publish these papers at the same time. There was no such conspiracy. These were independent efforts here.”

16:00 First paper was by the Santa Rosa (RSS) team explaining the UAH data processing error.
16:35 UAH claims they can’t be wrong because they are in agreement with weather balloon data.
Santer explains balloon data gathering... thermometers have thermo shielding to protect against the heating of direct sunlight... over time the shielding has become better and better thus introducing some non-climatic bias into the weather balloon data.
17:40 The second paper was by Yale University and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab at Princeton.
Balloon data is taken twice a daily, mid-day and mid-night. This paper examined these two set independently and found the night time temps were increasing, were as mid-day measurements didn’t.
19:00 The third paper was Santer’s team. Our paper showed that when you looked at the adjusted data, when you didn’t have this problem with the change sign error, when you look at adjusted weather data sets for the thermo shields, there was no disagreement between climate models and what they told us about the expected changes in atmospheric temperatures between observation and basic physical theory. We thought we had resolved the problem.
19:40 Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere - Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences. A report to congress (2 dozen) that involved all the major protagonists UAH, RSS, weather ballon experts, surface temp experts, climate modelers.
The report included dissonant voices.
20:20 The reports conclusion statement: “Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of human induced global warming. This significant discrepancy no longer exists.”
So we thought that was the end of the story... not quite

20:45 In 2007 a paper was published
~ Douglass et al reached conclusion very different from those of the first US CCSP Report.
IJC 2007 ~
Douglass and astronomer
Christy who was involved in the UAH data set
“Using the same data that was used to reach the CSSP report’s conclusions they reached a fundamentally different conclusion”
22:10 Fred Singer one of the authors of report based on single study Douglass et al claimed: “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate” and it became the center piece for the: “Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change”

22:40 Singer claimed: Douglass et al. findings are “an inconvenient truth”, and prove that “Nature rules the climate: Human-produced greenhouse gases are not responsible for global warming.” US National Press Club 2008
“These were extraordinary claims, to say that one paper can literally turn the world of science on its head and somehow magically counteracted literally hundreds of scientific papers that showed that there was a profound human effect on climate.”

23:00 “How could they make this claim? OK, in order to look at how they could make that kind of claim, we need to get into some statistical issues.”
23:40 Signal and noise in model data. . .

{~ ~ ~ education time ~ ~ ~}

31:15 “Ok, so what did Douglass et al. do. . . “
What are the elements of the Douglass et al. “robust consistency test”?
Explaining, “took 19 models combined and took the average trend, subtract form that the single observed trend and then we’ll divide by some term and called the result the estimate of uncertainty in the multi-model trend.”
31:50 “That estimate of uncertainly is something statisticians call the “standard error of the mean.” It’s an estimate of how well you know some mean quantity from a finite sample of results.”
32:20 “Let me show you what that looked like...” {explaining graph}
33:15 Getting to the nitty gritty of the Douglass at all “element III of the Douglass et al. “consistency test”: observed temperature trend.”
33:50 But, you can also see if you... if you applied their test to each of the individual models, then 11 of the 19 would be deemed not models. They’d be deemed inconsistent with the model average. Any test that says that half the things that you use to perform the test are actually inconsistent with the average is a really, really weird test. This is not even an undergraduate type of error that you would make in the first year of statistics. ... it doesn’t pass any of the most basic sanity tests.”
34:45 “What did they do wrong? First of all they assumed that trends were perfectly known, both models and observations. That’s wrong as I’ve showed you noise is an important factor and you have to incorporate that uncertainty in estimating trends as part of your test. That’s really important and they didn’t do that.”
~~~~~

What were the principle errors in the Douglass et al. statistical test?
~ They ignored the influence of interannual variability on the observed trend.
~ They assume, incorrectly, that the “signal” component of temperature change in observations is perfectly know.
~ Their use of “sigma-S-E” term is incorrect.
~ sigma-S-E is an appropriate measure of how well the multi-model mean trend can be estimated from a finite sample of model results.
~ sigma-S-E (standard error of the mean) is NOT appropriate for determining whether the multi-model trend is consistent with a single (uncertain observed) trend!

35:45 When Douglass et al. was released it receive extraordinary media coverage...
36:20 “.. it was so clear that something was wrong in this (Douglass) paper and that needed to be brought out into bright daylight.”
37:00 Douglass et al. with error bars includes... {revealing}
... there is no statistical difference between the models and the observations...
37:55 “OK, but people might say: well your test is flawed too. I don’t believe that the test you’ve come up with that incorporates this uncertainty in the observations is a meaningful one, or appropriate test. One way of addressing that kind of criticism is by performing tests with random data...”
39:10 Here you see the results of such tests...
40:25 this is how the Douglass test behaved...
40:35 “... What happened is that more than 80% of the time with randomly generated data their test would conclude that the randomly data sets were significantly different. It was absurd, completely absurd, demonstrably wrong, we are not talking about shades of gray difference here about opinion
here between reasonable scientists, we are talking about something that was simply incorrect.”

41:15 poster
What were the bottom-line conclusions of the Santer et al. paper?
~ Our results contradict Douglass et al.’s claim that all simulated temperature trends in the tropical troposphere and in tropical lapse rates are inconsistent with observations.
~ This claim was based on use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets, and on two methodological errors.
~~ Neglect of observational trend uncertainties introduced by interannual variablity
~~ Application of an inappropriate statistical “consistency test”
~ We find that there is no longer a serious discrepancy between modeled and observed trends in tropical lapse rates. {published Oct 2008}

41:20 “The Douglass et al. claim was based on older data sets. They had actually ignored data sets that showed warming of the tropical atmosphere even though they had those data sets in their possession. But more crucially their claim was wrong because it was based on two serious methodological errors. They assumed that the trends and the observations and the models were perfectly known. No uncertainty which was clearly wrong. And they applied this inappropriate statistical consistency test which they had devised themselves.

Now you would think if you come to a conclusion that turns the world of science on its head and claims to undercut the findings of IPCC Fourth Assessment report, claims to undercut the finding of the US climate change science report, you would ask why. Why did we get a completely different result that these other guys who were using the same data as they did.”

42:20 “They did not ask that question. They got the result that they liked and they published that result.”
42:30 “Nature wrote a little thing saying this is now the end of the story the riddle is resolved. We thought so too.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

43:00 Santer’s paper was published October 8th, 2008. Steven McIntyre requests “the model monthly data (49 series) used for statistical analysis in Santer et al. 2008 while on travel in Hawaii and in the UK at the time McIntyre’s request arrives, when I got back to my office...
43:30 “I basically told McIntyre replied if you wanted to audit our findings you are free to do so, the climate model data that we use are freely available, in fact, three and a half thousand researchers around the world use the climate model data that we have archived at Livermore, it’s an open data base... Mr. McIntyre had in his possession, or had the ability to access exactly the same data that we have used in our study. And indeed I should point out that the Douglass et al. paper used the same archive...”

44:20 The freedom of information requests
44:50 “He (McIntyre) then began to express moral outrage on his blog, ‘Santer was stonewalling him’. I began to get hate mail. I began to get threatening letters... etc...
45:30 ... I released all the intermediate data on PCMDI’s website January 13rd, 2009. Again the raw climate data that I used was freely available to anyone in the world, even Mr. McIntyre...
46:00 some excepts from McIntyre blog revealing...
46:40 “This did not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling that this was a scientific peer who was truly interested in scientific discovery and understanding the nature and causes of climate change...”
47:05 “so I think this all boils down to a couple of issues this freedom of information request stuff. And as you can see this is at the heart of much of the climategate debate...”
47:20 I believe Phil Jones got into the difficulties he did because of McIntyre... over sixty FOIA requests in a short time...
47:35 “I believe the purpose of those requests was not valid scientific discovery, but harassment and that’s very troubling to me.”

47:45 “What questions did McIntyre’s freedom of information requests raise in our case? First of all what he wanted was the intermediate calculations that we had done from the raw climate model data. So a reasonable questions is, did we do those intermediate calculations correctly? Now, we had already been audited, Douglass et al. to their credit had gone back to the raw data, they had already found very similar intermediate results to the results that we had. The difference between the Douglass et al. and the Santer et al. paper was never in the intermediate calculations. It was in the statistical tests that the two groups had used. So McIntyre’s request was completely frivolous, because we had already been audited effectively on the first part of the problem, did we do the intermediate calculations correctly.
Did we apply the appropriate statistical tests? Again, as I’ve showed you one doesn’t have to stand up there and say trust me... there are ways of adjudicating, you can look at how these test perform with randomly generated data.”

49:00 “Clearly as I’ve shown you the Douglass et al. test fails. It does not perform according to expectations, it does not perform as a reasonable statistical test should perform...”
... and ours performed to theoretical expectations.
49:30 “So question two, Yes, we had examined how these two sets of tests performed, ours performed according to theory, Douglass et al. test did not perform according to theoretical expectations. “
49:50 “Question three: And this is the more difficult one” What is our legal responsibility as scientists? Are we required to provide self appointed auditors who have no training in climate science everything they ask for? Every single little thing, email correspondence, intermediate calculations, explanations of how to use computer codes. These are all things that have been requested in the past. Do we have that requirement?
“And if we don’t give some self appointed auditor everything they requests can they make our lives miserable?...

50:40 “This is why I am in trouble now I’m in trouble for setting the record straight on a paper that should not have been published.
“I don’t think we have that responsibility. I think we have a reasonable responsibility as scientist to insure that others can replicate what we have done. That they have in their possession all the data that we used at the outset of our study, that they can see whether we did all calculations correctly, and whether we drew appropriate conclusions based on those calculation that we did...”

51:35 Back to science. . .
52:00 the non-science is what Douglass et al. did. They did not behave like normal scientists would do. They used the same data that others had used, models and observations. They got fundamentally different results after devising their own statistical tests.
“And rather than probing, and then asking is our test appropriate, are the inferences that we drew appropriate. They just ran with the result that they got.

52:45 “And the non-sense I think is what Mr. McIntyre has done.
All of this expression of moral outrage on his blog and playing this game where you literally insight others people to hatred, and get them to do all sorts of things that have nothing to do with science whatsoever. And nothing to do with the search for scientific truth.
Again from my perspective Mr. McIntyre had access to all the information he needed, both model and observational data to test our findings and determine whether we are right or we are wrong.

I think he’s using freedom of information requests not only in my case but in many other cases as a mean for harassing and intimidating other scientists. I think there is a calculated attempt to mandate the scientific equivalent of what people used to call “no-go areas” in Northern Ireland. You go there and come up with results that we don’t like. We’ll be down on you like a ton of bricks. And paleoclimate is one of those areas now and also the micro-wave sounding satellite data that’s another one of those “no-go areas.

“I don’t think we can let this stuff stand. Now more than at any other time we urgently need people looking at these key areas of climate science and not be intimidated by bullies.”

54:10 “One of the really troubling things is the asymmetry in this auditing. Mr. McIntyre purports to have significant statistical training, yet he did not audit the Douglass et al. paper which had a grievous and very obvious statistical error. If someone really where interested in dispassionately getting to the bottom of things and why two papers reach fundamentally different conclusions they would not behave in the way the Mr. McIntyre has behaved.”
54:50 Climategate tells us that there are folks out there, forces of unreason who are not really interested in improving our understanding of the science. And the very sad thing to me is that even after publication of our paper Douglass et al. have not admitted any error in what they did.
55:15 Timeline of key events related to the publication of the Douglass et al. and Santer et al. papers.
55:30 Based on their selective analysis of the hacked emails of the Climatic Research Unit David Douglass and John Christy published something at AmericanThinker blog, in which they accused me of serious professional misconduct. They did not admit any error in their statistics, but they accuse me of conspiring to delay publication of the print version of their paper...

... Inhofe and Barton are now investigated Santer ...a
57:00 It is kind of a morality play for me, I guess to be filed under the category of no good deed goes unpunished...
57:15 Science is not self correcting, there is no magical correcting out there. When a paper has been published, and extraordinary and wrong claims are made on the basis of that paper, people have to do the work of exposing the errors, remedying these errors, trying to explain what went wrong, trying to do it right there is cost involved in trying to do that.
But, that does not absolve us from the responsibility of trying”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Q&A

1:10:45 “... as with this latest Inhofe thing. Talking of criminal prosecution... I believe it is McCarthyism... targeting of individuals because of the work they do, and because of what that work shows. It’s as simple as that. It is chilling I think for young people, but I guess the encouragement I would like to give people in the audience who are thinking about working on these issues: don’t give up, work on this stuff, it’s critically important. You can’t be silenced by the like of these guys at all. One cannot leave the playing field to these sorts of customers.
1:16:00 ... his request that Santer et al. 2008 be published as a stand alone paper and not as a commentary...
That has now email has been portrayed “as me exerting evil influence on the journal to do my bidding, I believe psychologists call that kind of behavior “Projection” when you actually project onto others your own values and beliefs and behavioral patterns.
You know, from my point of view we did absolutely nothing wrong here. We did the science in order to address a flawed paper, we published that. It was entirely appropriate to ask whether our paper would be considered as a stand-alone contribution. It was and it should have been and I had no control over the decision to hold back the printed version of their paper.
Again, the printed version wasn’t the one that got the attention. It was the on-line (Douglass et al.) paper that had been printed ten months before ours...” Fox & Press Club attention.

1:19:10 “... it’s part of being a scientist. We have the responsibility not only to do research but also to set the scientific record straight, to point out abuses when extraordinary and wrong claims are made on the basis of demonstrably flawed stuff. You can’t ignore it, you can’t let it slide. If you do that contributes to public misunderstanding of the most basic elements of climate science.
People say: ‘well yea, I don’t believe any of this stuff because satellite data, these guys showed that the atmosphere is cooling”... Many people remember that the atmosphere is cooling claim very few people remember that claim was made of the basis of a sign error, the guys got the sign wrong.
Many people believe and remember the Douglass et al. claim, ‘didn’t these guys show that models and observations are just at odds and their really statistically different?’ That got on Fox news. No body remembers that another paper came along and showed that these guys had screwed up the most basic statistical test. So it is incumbent on all of us to set the record straight.”
1:23:55 “The bottom line is that no matter how loudly these guys shout and scream you can’t change the science. Ultimately scientific truth will prevail...”
1:26:50 “... I think there’s a game here that this self appointed auditor can request whatever he wants from climate scientists he can use the power of his website to stir people up into some frenzy. Get them all riled up, ‘so and so has not given me exactly what I wanted.’ Do something about it...
1:27:30 “ ... in part it’s based on this intemperate language that goes on at some of these websites. In part because of the intemperate language of people like Senator Inhofe, who refers to us now as criminals, climate science as a hoax and fraudulent. Those kinds of words are not conducive to rational debate, rational public discourse at all.”

1:35:50 Q: What are the journal standards in terms of providing data to reviewers.
{Interesting in depth look at a scientists source codes and whether or not that should be made available.}
1:38:55 Schneider: “... the process of science is much better served by having independent codes... ”
1:38:30 Schneider: “... so my journal... decided that the data had to be there, the methods had to be very explicit, no hidden how you did the equations, and that algorithms that you used were there, but that the codes were not to be provided and in fact the National Science Foundation has very recently agreed that its investigators are not required to turn over personal source code to any request...”

1:40:20 “Just following up on what Steven said, the key thing here is not only were the primary model data available to Mr. McIntyre, the algorithms that we used to do the intermediate calculations had been published, were available in the peer review literature. Our statistical tests were spelled out in excruciating detail in our paper. There was never any question on the reproducibility issue. This man had access to all the information that he needed in order to try and replicate our calculations and figure out whether we had reached appropriate conclusions. As I mentioned Douglass et al. had already sort of audited the intermediate calculations. McIntyre was unwilling to do that.”
1:42:00 “I think this latest swing of the pendulum which was mentioned today, criminal prosecution or things like that being threatened. May hopefully get some attention.
The only crime I’m guilty of, in my mind, is trying to set the scientific record straight, I don’t think that’s a crime yet...”

1:42:30 “People in the end will realize that this is not a political issue, this is not an ideological issue, it should not be. It’s a science issue and it behooves all of us to understand the science, to take the decisions on what to do about it on the basis of the best available science. Clearly the Douglass et al. paper was not the best available science. Extraordinary and false claims were made on the basis of that. It’s sad how those claims are now being accepted as the truth and now being woven into the fabric of these kinds of criminal prosecution things. But, in the end, the climate system, no matter how loudly these people can scream the climate system is not going to be changed by this, it’s not going to be phased by this. It will continue to warm. The sad thing is that action on addressing that problem will likely be delayed because of this information.

~ ~ ~ open, honest and eloquent... worth taking the time to listen to the entire talk in person. ~ ~ ~

Ben Santer PhD.
The General Public: Why Such Resistance?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTsc3jV1Otw

Integrity of Stephen McIntyre examined... a review by Real Climate

2011-05-20T15:29:00.004-06:00

The following is a collection of posts from RealClimate.org a website put together by real climatologists, folks who actually publish real peer-reviewed articles - as opposed to being wrapped within a non-peer reviewed media machine as is the case with the famous Stephen McIntyre - the mining engineer, investment promoter, and the statistician who thinks his personal intellectual powers permit him to stand judge and jury over the entire establishment climatology community and decades worth of research.

Over at the Skepticforum.com he has a great defender who's constantly challenging me to provide evidence for McIntyre's deception, yet rejects all that doesn't agree with her outlook. But, like I keep trying to remind her, One Directional Skepticism Equals Denial.

So for folks out there who are interested in what the brains have to say about the controversies and misperceptions being peddled by Mr. McIntyre here is a little collection.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
{Admittedly this is the longest post I've put together and you might want to simply link to the various Real Climate posts where you can get the full scoop rather than these truncated versions.}

{The earliest reports, at the bottom of the page, are actually the most interesting so far as meat'n potatoes understanding of the scientific background to McIntyre's manufactured controversies.
But, here we have an example of the dishonest manipulation and dissemination of information which the denier echo-chamber has turned into a high art form.}

Wahl-to-Wahl coverage — gavin @ 9 March 2011

Eugene Wahl asked us to post a statement related to some incorrect claims circulating in the blogosphere:

The Daily Caller blog yesterday contained an inaccurate story regarding a correspondence that was part of the emails hacked from East Anglia University Climate Research Unit (CRU) in November 2009.

For the record, while I received the email from CRU as forwarded by Dr. Mann, the forwarded message came without any additional comment from Dr. Mann; there was no request from him to delete emails. At the time of the email in May 2008, I was employed by Alfred University, New York. I became a NOAA employee in August 2008.

The emails I deleted while a university employee are the correspondence I had with Dr. Briffa of CRU regarding the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, all of which have been in the public domain since the CRU hack in November 2009. This correspondence has been extensively examined and no misconduct found. As a NOAA employee, I follow agency record retention policies and associated guidance from information technology staff.

Dr. Eugene R. Wahl
March 9, 2011

RC's comments:
These claims are simply the latest attempt to try and manufacture scandals and smear scientists, particularly Mike Mann, based on the UEA emails. The story appears likely to have come from Senator Inhofe’s office who presumably had access to the transcripts taken by the NOAA Office of the Inspector General (whose investigation found no evidence of any wrongdoing by NOAA employees). The story was planted with Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts, and Chris Horner, and then linked to by Inhofe’s office to provide a little plausible denialability – a rather blatant media spin operation.
But the facts of the case do not support the narrative they are pushing at all. . .
{...}
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

{Quite the interesting 3,000 word read examining the usual denialist claims.}

The Montford Delusion — 22 July 2010 — Guest commentary by Tamino

If you don’t know much about climate science, or about the details of the controversy over the “hockey stick,” then A. W. Montford’s book The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science might persuade you that not only the hockey stick, but all of modern climate science, is a fraud perpetrated by a massive conspiracy of climate scientists and politicians, in order to guarantee an unending supply of research funding and political power. That idea gets planted early, in the 6th paragraph of chapter 1.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

{Here RC discusses the Yamal tree ring data and McIntyre’s critique which once again “proved” climatologists have it all wrong... not }

Hey Ya!(mal) — group @ 30 September 2009

Interesting news this weekend. Apparently everything we’ve done in our entire careers is a “MASSIVE lie” (sic) because all of radiative physics, climate history, the instrumental record, modeling and satellite observations turn out to be based on 12 trees in an obscure part of Siberia. Who knew?

Indeed, according to both the National Review and the Daily Telegraph (and who would not trust these sources?), even Al Gore’s use of the stair lift in An Inconvenient Truth was done to highlight cherry-picked tree rings, instead of what everyone thought was the rise in CO2 concentrations in the last 200 years.
{...}
So along comes Steve McIntyre, self-styled slayer of hockey sticks, who declares without any evidence whatsoever that Briffa didn’t just reprocess the data from the Russians, but instead supposedly picked through it to give him the signal he wanted. These allegations have been made without any evidence whatsoever.
McIntyre has based his ‘critique’ on a test conducted by randomly adding in one set of data from another location in Yamal that he found on the internet. . .
{...}
One would think that some things go without saying, but apparently people still get a key issue wrong so let us be extremely clear. Science is made up of people challenging assumptions and other peoples’ results with the overall desire of getting closer to the ‘truth’. There is nothing wrong with people putting together new chronologies of tree rings or testing the robustness of previous results to updated data or new methodologies. Or even thinking about what would happen if it was all wrong.

What is objectionable is the conflation of technical criticism with unsupported, unjustified and unverified accusations of scientific misconduct. Steve McIntyre keeps insisting that he should be treated like a professional.

But how professional is it to continue to slander scientists with vague insinuations and spin made-up tales of perfidy out of the whole cloth instead of submitting his work for peer-review? He continues to take absolutely no responsibility for the ridiculous fantasies and exaggerations that his supporters broadcast, apparently being happy to bask in their acclaim rather than correct any of the misrepresentations he has engendered.

If he wants to make a change, he has a clear choice; to continue to play Don Quixote for the peanut gallery or to produce something constructive that is actually worthy of publication.

Peer-review is nothing sinister and not part of some global conspiracy, but instead it is the process by which people are forced to match their rhetoric to their actual results. You can’t generally get away with imprecise suggestions that something might matter for the bigger picture without actually showing that it does. It does matter whether something ‘matters’, otherwise you might as well be correcting spelling mistakes for all the impact it will have.

Update: Briffa and colleagues have now responded with an extensive (and in our view, rather convincing) rebuttal.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

{Another interesting read, this one explaining the background to the claim of 1934 being the warmest year, sometime even being misrepresented to claim world temps - when it only concerned US temperature data. It is a case in point of how a minor fix is morphed into a mountain it just isn’t.}

1934 and all that — gavin @ 10 August 2007

Last Saturday, Steve McIntyre wrote an email to NASA GISS pointing out that for some North American stations in the GISTEMP analysis, there was an odd jump in going from 1999 to 2000.

The U.S. annual (January-December) mean temperature is slightly warmer in 1934 than in 1998 in the GISS analysis (Plate 6). This contrasts with the USHCN data, which has 1998 as the warmest year in the century. In both cases the difference between 1934 and 1998 mean temperatures is a few hundredths of a degree.

The main reason that 1998 is relatively cooler in the GISS analysis is its larger adjustment for urban warming. In comparing temperatures of years separated by 60 or 70 years the uncertainties in various adjustments (urban warming, station history adjustments, etc.) lead to an uncertainty of at least 0.1°C. Thus it is not possible to declare a record U.S. temperature with confidence until a result is obtained that exceeds the temperature of 1934 by more than 0.1°C.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

{Here we start getting into the nitty gritty of the tree ring data, PCA and centering and red noise, it's a fairly long post, here I include only a few highlights.}

On Yet Another False Claim by McIntyre and McKitrick — mike @ 6 January 2005

McIntyre and McKitrick (MM), in one of their many false claims regarding the Mann et al (MBH98) temperature reconstruction, assert that the “Hockey Stick” shape of the reconstruction is an artifact of the “non-centered” Principal Components Analysis (PCA) convention used by MBH98 in representing the North American International Tree Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) data series. We already demonstrated the falsehood of this assertion here
{...}
Here, however, we choose to focus on some curious additional related assertions made by MM holding that (1) use of non-centered PCA (as by MBH98) is somehow not statistically valid, and (2) that “Hockey Stick” patterns arise naturally from application of non-centered PCA to purely random “red noise”. Both claims, which are of course false, were made in a comment on MBH98 by MM that was rejected by Nature , and subsequently parroted by astronomer Richard Muller in a non peer-reviewed setting–see e.g. this nice discussion by science journalist David Appell of Muller’s uncritical repetition of these false claims.

These claims were discredited in the response provided by Mann and coworkers to the Nature editor and reviewers, which presumably formed the primary basis for the rejection of the MM comment.

Contrary to MM’s assertions, the use of non-centered PCA is well-established in the statistical literature, and in some cases is shown to give superior results to standard, centered PCA
{...}
Lets turn, now, to MM’s claim that the “Hockey Stick” arises simply from the application of non-centered PCA to red noise. Given a large enough “fishing expedition” analysis, it is of course possible to find “Hockey-Stick like” PC series out of red noise. But this is a meaningless exercise. {...} This analysis showed that the “Hockey Stick” pattern is highly significant in comparison with the expectations from random (red) noise for both the MBH98 and MM conventions.
{...}
So the facts deal a death blow to yet another false claim by McIntyre and McKitrick. Despite the plain facts, as laid out here, however, their false claims have nonetheless been parroted in op-ed pieces of dubious origin and other non-peer-reviewed venues.

One of the primary missions of “RealClimate” is indeed to expose the false, disingenuous, and misleading claims often found in such venues.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

{This post preceded the above post, discussing PC, the centering mess and explaining how Mann et al. processed the data. Again I include only highlights of a much longer worthier post at RealClimate}

False Claims by McIntyre and McKitrick regarding the Mann et al. (1998) reconstruction — mike @ 4 December 2004

A number of spurious criticisms regarding the Mann et al (1998) proxy-based temperature reconstruction have been made by two individuals McIntyre and McKitrick ( McIntyre works in the mining industry, while McKitrick is an economist). These criticisms are contained in two manuscripts (McIntyre and McKitrick 2003 and 2004–the latter manuscript was rejected by Nature; both are collectively henceforth referred to as “MM”). {...}

[McIntyre and McKitrick have additionally been discredited in a recent peer-reviewed article by Rutherford et al (2004)].

{...} Application of the standard selection rule (Preisendorfer’s “Rule N’“) used by MBH98, selects 2 PC series using the MBH98 centering convention, but a larger number (5 PC series) using the MM centering convention. Curiously undisclosed by MM in their criticism is the fact that precisely the same ‘hockey stick’ pattern that appears using the MBH98 convention (as PC series #1) also appears using the MM convention, albeit slightly lower down in rank (PC series #4) (Figure 1). {...}

{...} As discussed above, MM incorrectly truncated the PC basis set at only 2 PC series based on a failure to apply standard selection rules to determine the number of PC series that should be retained in the analysis. {...}

We further show that the entire issue raised by MM regarding the centering convention used in PCA is spurious by demonstrating that similar results are produced whether or not proxy networks are represented using PCA at all (Figure 3).

We performed the reconstruction employing all 95 proxy indicators available in the MBH98 proxy network back to AD 1400 individually (rather than using any PC series to represent these indicators). {...} The central ‘hockey stick’ result of MBH98 is thus quite clearly seen to be robust to the specious criticisms raised by MM with regard to the centering convention used in the PCA of proxy data networks or the infilling of missing values in certain proxy series.
{...}
Given that each of the criticisms of MBH98 raised by MM are demonstrably false, one might well be led to wonder how MM, using the MBH98 method and their putative ‘corrected’ version of the MBH98 proxy dataset, were able to obtain a reconstruction so at odds with the MBH98 reconstruction and virtually all existing reconstructions (in particular, in its apparent indication of anomalous 15th century warmth). Rather than ‘correcting’ the MBH98 proxy data set, we demonstrate that the reconstruction of MM resulted, instead, from their selective censoring of key indicators from the MBH98 proxy dataset.

Indeed, we are able to reproduce the MM reconstruction of anomalous 15th century warmth when the entire ITRDB North American data set (and the ‘Queen Anne’ series) are censored from the proxy network (Figure 4). These data (in fact, 70% of all of the proxy data used by MBH98 prior to AD 1600) were unjustifiably censored from the MBH98 dataset by McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) in their original analysis (see Jones and Mann, 2004, and Rutherford et al, 2004 for a discussion).

MM in their more recent rejected submission to Nature, instead filtered out the ‘hockey stick’ pattern of low-frequency variability in the North American ITRDB data through the incorrect PCA truncation described above, which censors this pattern by retaining too few Principal Components series in the data.
{...}
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

{Here we have a fairly simple run down of Mac's myths. I've only included section headings so please do read what the pro's have to say.}

Myth vs. Fact Regarding the "Hockey Stick"
— mike @ 4 December 2004

MYTH #0: Evidence for modern human influence on climate rests entirely upon the "Hockey Stick" Reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere mean temperatures indicating anomalous late 20th century warmth.

MYTH #1: The "Hockey Stick" Reconstruction is based solely on two publications by climate scientist Michael Mann and colleagues (Mann et al, 1998;1999).

MYTH #2: Regional proxy evidence of warm or anomalous (wet or dry) conditions in past centuries contradicts the conclusion that late 20th century hemispheric mean warmth is anomalous in a long-term (multi-century to millennial) context.

MYTH #3: The "Hockey Stick" studies claim that the 20th century on the whole is the warmest period of the past 1000 years.

MYTH #4: Errors in the "Hockey Stick" undermine the conclusion that late 20th century hemispheric warmth is anomalous.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

{Here RealClimate is reporting on peer review science in action. Specifically how Rutherford et al 2005 deconstructs McIntyre and McKitrick's claims.}

Rutherford et al 2005 highlights — mike @ 22 November 2004

The claims of McIntyre and McKitrick regarding the Mann et al (1998) temperature reconstruction have recently been discredited by the following peer-reviewed article to appear in the American Meteorological Society journal, “Journal of Climate“:

Rutherford, S., Mann, M.E., Osborn, T.J., Bradley, R.S., Briffa, K.R., Hughes, M.K., Jones, P.D., Proxy-based Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperature Reconstructions
: Sensitivity to Methodology, Predictor Network, Target Season and Target Domain, Journal of Climate, in press (2005).

Key excerpts from the article are provided below:
1. page 13, 2nd paragraph (through top of page 14)
It should be noted that some falsely reported putative errors in the Mann et al.(1998) proxy data claimed by McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) are an artifact of (a) the use by these latter authors of an incorrect version of the Mann et al. (1998) proxy indicator dataset, and (b) their misunderstanding of the methodology used by Mann et al. (1998) to calculate PC series of proxy networks over progressively longer time intervals. In the Mann et al. (1998) implementation, the PCs are computed over different time steps so that the maximum amount of data can be used in the reconstruction.
{...}
The latter misunderstanding led McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) to eliminate roughly 70% of the proxy data used by Mann et al. (1998) prior to AD 1600, including 77 of the 95 proxy series used by Mann et al. (1998) prior to AD 1500. This elimination of data gave rise to spurious, anomalous warmth during the 15th century in their reconstruction, sharply at odds with virtually all other empirical and model-based estimates of hemispheric temperature trends in past centuries (see e.g. Jones and Mann, 2004).

2. page 32, beginning (5th) sentence, 3rd paragraph:
{...}We terminated the calibration period in 1971 to address the criticism by McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) of the use by MBH98 of a modest number of infilled missing proxy values in the PC/Multiproxy network between 1971 and 1980.

3. page 33, beginning 2nd paragraph:
A remarkably close similarity is observed (Figure 3) between the RegEM and Mann et al. (1998) NH annual mean surface temperature reconstructions. The two reconstructions are indistinguishable well within their 2-sigma uncertainties.
{...}
The close reproducibility of the MBH98 reconstruction based on both (a) the use of an independent CFR method and (b) the use of the individual proxies used by MBH98 rather than the Multiproxy/PC representation used by MBH98, discredits the arguments put forth by McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) in support of their putative correction to the MBH98 reconstruction.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

{If after all this you are ready for a little RealClimate on the lite side, here is a fun historical review.}

A brief history of knowledge about Antarctic temperatures
— eric @ 9 December 2010

Auditing Stephen McIntyre, anatomy of a deception

2011-05-19T19:33:00.001-06:00

Considering my conversations of the past couple days I believe it is time to share a little information from a website that has had the opportunity to delve into the modus operandi of Stephen McIntyre the Canadian mining engineer, investment promoter and statistician who has become the darling of the denier blogosphere and who is quite adept at stirring up passions.

Unfortunately, his dedication to the principles of science as a learning tool aren't among his priorities ~ this man's priority is championing a political agenda. The Free Market of drill baby drill, burn baby burn, in total disregard for consequences.

Pushing an attitude of Willfully Ignoring what climatology and other Earth sciences are telling us, he believes that with wisps of statistical tricks he has upended decades of climatology knowledge.

It is a long article so I only include the introduction
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

DeepClimate.org

How to be a climate science auditor, part 2: The forgotten climategate emails
Posted on May 14, 2010 by Deep Climate

In this installment, I’ll look at another technique in the climate auditor’s toolbox, namely selective quotation. Once again, our example case study will involve accusations by Steve McIntyre concerning the use of paleoclimatologist Keith Briffa’s tree-ring based reconstruction in a key figure from the IPCC Third Assessment Report.

Arguing from a cherrypicked selection of quotes from the “Climategate” emails, McIntyre has claimed that IPCC authors Chris Folland and Michael Mann pressured Briffa to submit a reconstruction that would not “dilute the message” by showing “inconsistency” with multi-proxy reconstructions from Mann and Briffa’s CRU colleague Phil Jones. Briffa “hastily re-calculated his reconstruction”, sending one with a supposedly larger post-1960 decline before. According to McIntyre, Mann resolved this new “conundrum” and simply “chopped off the inconvenient portion of the Briffa tree-ring data”.

But a review of the emails – including some that have never been quoted before – clearly contradicts McIntyre’s version of events:
• Jones and Briffa were concerned that Mann had an outdated version of the Briffa reconstruction, and both urged the adoption of the newer “low frequency” one, more appropriate for comparison with other multi-century reconstructions.
• Far from pressuring Briffa to change his reconstruction right away, Mann questioned whether an immediate change was required, or even possible, and counseled waiting for the next revision.
• CRU colleague Tim Osborn advised Mann that he and Briffa “usually stopped” the “low frequency” reconstruction in 1960, and went one better in his later “resend” to Mann, by explicitly removing the post-1960 data.

I’ll also show how McIntyre has changed his narrative along the way , in an effort to prove that the true “context” of the famous “trick” to “hide the decline” is somehow an indictment of the IPCC. But first, once again, here is the cause of all the fuss, namely Figure 2-21 from Chapter 2 of the IPCC Third Assessment Report – – Working Group I: The Scientific Basis (2001).
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Please read on, it's rather enlightening
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

What's up with that Watts?

2011-05-19T18:31:00.004-06:00

Since Anthony Watts felt the need to delete my post from his forum and thus my ability to defend myself and present the other side of this debate, I'll post it here {with an additional sentence or two}.

{Sorry, I got no interest in linking his blog.
WUWT: "Wegman paper retraction by Journal" ~ May 19th}

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

AK says:
May 19, 2011 at 3:11 am
etc., etc.
~ ~ ~
AK, It is interesting how the personal insult and copious ad hominem predominate these discussions.

Regarding Ben Santer, why is it OK for the “skeptic” to manipulate information with abandon?
For details please see:
{#11b} Lord Monckton, Mr. Ferguson, SPPI, v. Dr. Ben Santer - anatomy of a character assassination

{#11a} SPPI, Monckton, Seitz, WSJ - anatomy of a character assassination

Regarding lies being embraced here’s an interesting one:
{#9} SPPI & Monckton’s claim regarding Greenland's Cryosphere being OK - examined
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Pt says:
May 18, 2011 at 9:31 pm
etc., etc.
~ ~ ~
Pt, now that is how to impress me with integrity ~ wave Lord Monckton’s home planet SPPI at me. As for Bishop Hill aka. Andrew Montford... considering his record why should a real skeptic take this guy’s word for anything? Where’s some real proof?

It is truly amazing the folks you folks embrace.

And throughout all this politically driven obfuscation campaign no one seems interested in what is actually happening upon our physical planet ~ and how that is playing out every climatologists worst fears. If you think the weather has been crazy this past year or decade, just stick around we ain’t seen nothing yet. Crisis What Crisis?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rob says:
May 19, 2011 at 2:02 am

“A ‘corrigendum’ is what you see above. A correction of minor omissions and typos (in this case only in the Supplementary Material) which explicitly do not affect the published results.
Please provide evidence where “Michael Mann was forced to issue a retraction”.  Being skeptical is good, but ignorance and unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing are NOT a sign of skepticism.”

~ ~ ~
Inconvenient facts
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Anthony Watts: “It’s full of conspiracy theory. I don’t cover that sort of thing here.”
~ ~ ~
That’s precious Anthony,
Incidentally:
One Way Skepticism equals Denial

Furthermore:
The AGW consensus is NOT formed by scientists.
The AGW consensus IS compelled by the evidence.

What's up with the climate?

2011-05-19T13:59:00.003-06:00

A little sequel to my previous post. It's a cut and paste of another post of mine over at Skepticforum.com. I collected a few ScienceDaily.com stories.

K, {plus Mr. Watts and clan} it isn't a game.
How do you manage to show so much contempt for the establishment climatology community and its considered opinion ~ as dramatized by your obsession with McIntyre's statistical machinations and such dog-chasing-tail arguments ~ in the face of all this stuff going on in the real world?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I just wish I could figure out how you folks rationalize that...
. . . with this

Climate Change Hits Home
ScienceDaily (Mar. 20, 2011) — Direct experience of extreme weather events increases concern about climate change and willingness to engage in energy-saving behaviour, according to a new research paper published in the first edition of the journal Nature Climate Change this week.

Untapped Crop Data from Africa Predicts Corn Peril If Temperatures Rise
ScienceDaily (Mar. 14, 2011) — A hidden trove of historical crop yield data from Africa shows that corn -- long believed to tolerate hot temperatures -- is a likely victim of global warming.
Stanford agricultural scientist David Lobell and researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) report in the inaugural issue of Nature Climate Change that a clear negative effect of warming on maize -- or corn -- production was evident in experimental crop trial data conducted in Africa by the organization and its partners from 1999 to 2007.

Greenhouse Gases Contributed Substantially to Flood Risk in the U.K. in Autumn 2000
ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2011) — Greenhouse gas emissions due to human activity substantially increased the odds of damaging floods occurring in England and Wales in autumn 2000 according to new research published in the journal Nature on February 17. Although the precise magnitude is still uncertain, the researchers found a 2-in-3 chance that the odds were increased by about a factor of two or more.

Climate Change Affecting Food Safety
ScienceDaily (Feb. 22, 2011) — Climate change is already having an effect on the safety of the world's food supplies and unless action is taken it's only going to get worse, a Michigan State University professor told a symposium at this year's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Persistent Drought to Linger Across Southern United States
ScienceDaily (Jan. 24, 2011) — While wet and snowy weather has dominated the western U.S., persistent drought conditions are likely to linger in the Southern Plains and Southeast through mid to late spring, according to NOAA's National Weather Service. La Niña has kept storms and most of their precipitation in the north, leaving the South drier than normal.

Cloud 'Feedback' Affects Global Climate and Warming
ScienceDaily (Dec. 10, 2010) — Changes in clouds will amplify the warming of the planet due to human activities, according to a breakthrough study by a Texas A&M University researcher.
Andrew Dessler, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, says that warming due to increases in greenhouse gases will cause clouds to trap more heat, which will lead to additional warming. This process is known as the "cloud feedback" and is predicted to be responsible for a significant portion of the warming over the next century.

Variable Summer Rainfall in U.S. Southeast Linked to Climate Change
ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2010) — A doubling of abnormally wet or dry summer weather in the southeastern United States in recent decades has come from an intensification of the summertime North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH), or "Bermuda High."

Arctic Report Card: Region Continues to Warm at Unprecedented Rate
ScienceDaily (Oct. 22, 2010) — The Arctic region, also called the "planet's refrigerator," continues to heat up, affecting local populations and ecosystems as well as weather patterns in the most populated parts of the Northern Hemisphere, according to a team of 69 international scientists. The findings were released Oct. 21, 2010 in the Arctic Report Card, a yearly assessment of Arctic conditions.

Crop Failures Set to Increase Under Climate Change
ScienceDaily (Oct. 7, 2010) — Large-scale crop failures like the one that caused the recent Russian wheat crisis are likely to become more common under climate change due to an increased frequency of extreme weather events, a new study shows.

El Niños Are Growing Stronger, NASA/NOAA Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2010) — A relatively new type of El Niño, which has its warmest waters in the central-equatorial Pacific Ocean, rather than in the eastern-equatorial Pacific, is becoming more common and progressively stronger, according to a new study by NASA and NOAA.

Converging Weather Patterns Caused Last Winter's Huge Snows in U.S.
ScienceDaily (July 26, 2010) — The memory of last winter's blizzards may be fading in this summer's searing heat, but scientists studying them have detected a perfect storm of converging weather patterns that had little relation to climate change. The extraordinarily cold, snowy weather that hit parts of the U.S. East Coast and Europe was the result of a collision of two periodic weather patterns in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

What about the generations to follow us? Why don't you folks care?

What's up with that climate debate?

2011-05-19T12:22:00.010-06:00

This website is a modest homemade affair, my visitation is low and discussion zero. That's fine this started as just a place to post and hopefully share my essays.

However, I do enjoy discussion and am quite active at the Skeptic Society forum's "Climate Change" board. I invite anyone interested in some, hopefully, serious discussion to join us.

I bring this up because of a tiny exchange between Anthony Watts and myself, followed by this post over at Skepticforum:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[quote="D--"]What I find interesting in this dialogue is the fact that there is enough information on both sides to make plausible arguments in any direction. The fact that this issue gives arguments for both sides, meaning it cant be falsified, should allow for enough room of skepticism to preclude conclusions such as "well settled" and look at this as some kind of battle.

No one can be wrong and everyone has enough material to present back and support their premise. It is still vague enough to continue to explore.

~ ~ ~
You know D this sounds all beautiful and politically correct and I couldn't agree more. Well except for your claim that "skeptical claims" can't be falsified.

Don't you know a part of skepticism is being skeptical of oneself and to remain enthusiastically curious about new information and to be able to admit to errors and to correct one's errors... to reorient one's outlook?
~ ~ ~

For instance, your words sounds reasonable.
But, if a university was putting on a program about the moon landing, do they owe equal time to folks, some with degrees, who have built perfectly logical arguments defending their belief that the moon landing was a hoax?

Sure let them have their day. They present their case. What if the panel/public decides they have no case and dismisses them after day one.

What if those folks come back day two and totally ignore all the correcting they received the day before?
Not only that now they have megaphones and tons of literature claiming the same claims as yesterday.

Why should that be tolerated?
~ ~ ~

D, you seem to present this attitude that the continued debate is worthy.
I agree A debate is very worthy.

However, in a worthy debate there are agreed upon ground rules.
But in this past decade's climate debate there have been two distinct sides, with very different codes of ethics.
{Fact is, one side has turned this into a political dogfight and believes in the anything goes ruthless aspect of realpolitik.}

I myself would define the tragic split:
~ ~ ~ scientific, learning oriented.
{as witnessed by the collective effort of many thousands of serious scientists}
~ ~ ~ political, agenda driven contest to win.
{as witnessed by the manufactured, "think tank" driven attack on science}
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Guess my main question to Mr. Watts would be:
Why is it OK to continually recycle soundly discredited notions?

Mann's "hockey stick graph" and McIntyre et al. examined ;-)

2011-05-09T10:11:00.008-06:00

Perhaps the most enduring argument AGW “skeptics” use against the scientific consensus regarding manmade global warming is attacking the “Mann hockey stick graph.”

What’s a hockey stick got to do with understanding global warming? Well, it goes back to the 1980s and 90s. With the flood of new atmospheric and Earth Observation data scientists began to search for ways of discovering past climate changes in order to put the new information into historical perspective.

Scientists realized there were many natural “proxies” that recorded climate conditions as they grew. Trees, glaciers, all kinds of geologic depositions on land, under lakes and oceans. They reasoned that it should be possible to learn how to tease out climate information from such proxies.

Michael Mann and a team of pioneering researchers focused on tree-ring proxy studies. In 1998 they released a graph reflecting the tree-ring data they had been working on for years. In 1999 their graph was extended back to cover a thousand years. It didn’t actually look like a hockey stick, it was a bunch of waves with a radical uptick at the end.

The “hockey stick” happens by drawing an average-line through the main body of past small and medium fluctuations before getting to the recent steep increase. Basically, the shape underscored the profound influence our energy consuming society is having. Thus it became a despised target for all who wanted to deny responsibility and duty.

Then Republicans, such as Senator Inhofe, really got carried away proclaiming the science was actually doctored. The PR goes that scientists wanted to unduly alarm the public about the seriousness of us injecting over a couple billion tons of greenhouse gases into our thin atmosphere month after month.

They claimed it was part of a conspiracy to hobble growth of our consumer/industrial/military/oil complex. Some even claimed: scientists wanted to promote a one world government. Sounds a bit silly, but so long as the Republican mass media machine focuses on such distractions it leaves no time for considering the real issues facing all of us.

Into this PR effort stepped a Canadian mining engineer, investment promoter, statistician Stephen McIntyre, who went over the team’s work with a fine toothed comb. McIntyre did find some minor flaws in how Mann et al. processed their calculations.

One would think no problem, a further refinement, considering that McIntyre’s work altered the look of the graph by way less than 1%. This was science after all, one of its cornerstones is finding and correcting mistakes made in the collection and processing of information. Although it should be noted, even this tiny correction is in dispute.

Yet the denier echo-chamber, and McIntyre himself, presented his tiny adjustment as somehow overturning the whole field of climatology ~ stuff that’s pure political propaganda far removed from real facts.

Such denialism ignores that since 2000 dozens of independent teams worldwide have been studying many different proxies and without exception the basic “hockey stick shape” emerges from the data. That shape is telling us that our world is on a trajectory of warming not seen since deep geologic time. And we are the ones forcing it.

A key part of the hockey stick myth is that it’s hiding a Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. But, it doesn’t, they are reflected in the graph. More importantly, those events were regional and driven by a combination of factors scientists have come to understand: vulcanism; solar activity; ocean current oscillations among others.

We should be clear that these factors are playing a role in today’s situation. Volcanoes have been adding their cooling aerosols; our sun is at a historic minimum, and ocean oscillations continue to exert their regional influence.

What’s so different about today’s situation is that previous to industrialization, CO2 levels hovered around 280 (±15) ppm for over four hundred thousand years, giving our biosphere the stability to develop into this cornucopia the age of discovery learned to exploit so well.

But with industrialization atmospheric CO2 broke free from the historic trend and started going uphill, driven by our society’s increasing consumption of coal, oil, gasoline and other carbon based energy sources. Currently, our atmosphere has surpassed 390 ppm, a level unexperienced on Earth in over ten million years.

Today all but the most committed quacks agree that CO2 is indeed a potent greenhouse gas and a significant regulator of our planet’s temperature. While there isn’t, and can never be, absolute agreement on the exact amount of warming, those arguments are over fine details!

We should find no comfort in that uncertainty, since Earth observations are showing our planet changing much faster than scientific forecasts predicted. Yes, this is cause for alarm.

While Republican’s have turned this into a parlor game of who can best manipulate the political debate ~ the harsh real down to earth consequences are already being felt across the planet and they promise only to get worse as Republican statesmen and business leaders with their media machine continue their contemptuous political game of manufacturing willful ignor-ance.

When are we the people going to demand of our business leaders, politicians, media and we ourselves to stop allowing faith-based pipe-dreams to trump real down to Earth realities?

Frauenfeld,Knappenberger,Michaels 2011: No Worries

2011-05-08T15:17:00.005-06:00

I heard kind of a sick joke today, but it was so spot on I couldn't help but giggle:
"Global warming contrarians are like those sad chimpanzees who continue carrying their long dead babies."
Get it... talk about denial!

Talking about denial. . .

here is the latest scientific study to be ricocheting through the denier blogosphere ~ "Frauenfeld, Knappenberger, and Michaels 2011"
it claims:

“We find that the recent period of high-melt extent is similar in magnitude but, thus far, shorter in duration, than a period of high melt lasting from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The greatest melt extent over the last 2 1/4 centuries occurred in 2007; however, this value is not statistically significantly different from the reconstructed melt extent during 20 other melt seasons, primarily during 1923–1961.”

Based on it Patrick Michaels (one of the authors) seems to feel entitled to post an incredibly snarky article at his CATO blog titled “Please Sell Me Your Beach House.”

Sad thing is Frauenfeld, Knappenberger, and Michaels 2011 was dead on arrival.

Problem being they ignored recent data, they limited their scope, and they gave a disingenuous spin to old data.

There’s a big brouhaha going on over it in the climate change blogosphere.
If you want to learn about it, check out this article at SkepticalScience.
~ ~ ~

What’s interesting is that while the denial echo-chamber is laughing up yet another defeat of the Global Warming “Hoax” there was a conference going on in Copenhagen on the Arctic that they Willfully Ignored. (May 3-6, 2011)

The Arctic as a Messenger for Global Processes Climate Change and Pollution
http://amap.no/Conferences/Conf2011/about.html

For more information

Or if you really want to be impressed by the state of the science download the conference abstract
Here are some of the basic findings:

New research report shows the wider impact of climate change in the Arctic than expected  .

Sharply reduced snow cover, shorter winter season and thawing tundra.

The effects of climate change in the Arctic is already here.

And change is occurring much faster than was previously thought.   -

The changes we are seeing is dramatic. And they are no coincidences.
The trends are clear and different from the patterns when compared to the longer term"

===========================

Here's some more up to date assessment of what we are allowing to occur in the Arctic:

Speaking of the Arctic:
This page contains information products and materials presenting the results of the
Snow, Water, Ice and Permaforst in the Arctic (SWIPA)
assessment coordinated by Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) and produced in collaboration with the International Arctic Science Committee IASC, The World Meteorological Organization WMO/Clic and International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA)
~ ~ ~
Reports - Videos - Photographs - Time-lapse movie sequences- Press Kit - GRIS (2009) Overview
Reports: Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA) 2011 - Executive Summary

Regarding Pat Michaels repulsive (and wrong headed) opining, it is interesting to note that the first defense for substance-less arguments is to wrap them in distracting emotional attacks.
In closing, it's worth pointed out that "One Way Skepticism Is Denial!"

Ben Santer: This is what a scientist sounds like.

2011-05-05T01:14:00.010-06:00

I came across a five star lecture that I feel like sharing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTsc3jV1Otw

{ I appear to be having technical issues with links in this post - you can find properly functioning links at the CFI Discussion Forum }
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

PhD. Ben Santer and the climate debate -
“The General Public: Why Such Resistance?”

Ben Santer giving a hour long lecture at Stanford University, with nearly as much Q&A afterwards.

It begins with an introduction from the late great Stephen Schneider where he takes the time to explain what happened at the infamous IPCC plenary where-after Ben Santer was slandered with false charges of having manipulated Chapter 8 of the 1995 IPCC report. It's a fascinating, revealing story. Then its on to the main show...

... Presented in three stanzas:
~ Science ~
~ Non-science ~
~ Nonsense ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It begins with the UAH Satellite temperature records and does a great job of explaining the science behind atmospheric data collection:

6:40 Satellite data... 1990... folks who did the original research suggest that the atmosphere was cooling... that was a huge problem, ... models... 7:10 how could the surface be warming and the air above it cooling?
7:30 This was a fundamental problem to the theory

15:25 UAH “recognized that, that this was a problem, that they had to account for this drift effect, but they got the sign wrong, they literally got the sign wrong. They made a sign error in correcting for the effects of satellite orbital drift.” {PS this "travesty" went on for years, and even continues to be propagated}
15:40 Three papers published in Science partially resolved the “great MSU debate.”
~ ~ ~ “The Effect of Diurnal Correction on Satellite-Derived Lower Tropospheric Temperature”
~ ~ ~ “Radiosonde Daytime Biases and Late-20th Century Warming”
~ ~ ~ “Amplification of Surface Temperature Trends and Variability in the Tropical Atmosphere”

~ ~ ~

Then Santer discusses the Douglass et al. 2007, a paper which claimed to statistically show that climate models where way off, along with his own paper of 2008 that spelled out the statistical errors of Douglass et al.
Ben does another excellent job of carefully explaining the statistical issue involved and why the Douglas et al. paper was ultimately shown to be bad science.

33:50 But, you can also see if you... if you applied their test to each of the individual models, then 11 of the 19 would be deemed not models. They’d be deemed inconsistent with the model average. Any test that says that half the things that you use to perform the test are actually inconsistent with the average is a really, really weird test. This is not even an undergraduate type of error that you would make in the first year of statistics.”

~ ~ ~

The nonsense saga involves the Canadian mining investment promoter turned self appointed climate science auditor Steven McIntyre. And the way he has manipulated the FOI requests into ideological political weapons, devoid of any genuine scientific curiosity:

43:30 “I basically told McIntyre replied if you wanted to audit our findings you are free to do so, the climate model data that we use are freely available, in fact, three and a half thousand researchers around the world use the climate model data that we have archived at Livermore, it’s an open data base... Mr. McIntyre had in his possession, or had the ability to access exactly the same data that we have used in our study. And indeed I should point out that the Douglass et al. paper used the same archive...”
44:20 The freedom of information requests
44:50 “He (McIntyre) then began to express moral outrage on his blog, ‘Santer was stonewalling him’. I began to get hate mail. I began to get threatening letters... etc...

48:00 The difference between the Douglass et al. and the Santer et al. paper was never in the intermediate calculations. It was in the statistical tests that the two groups had used. So McIntyre’s request was completely frivolous, because we had already been audited effectively on the first part of the problem, did we do the intermediate calculations correctly.
Did we apply the appropriate statistical tests?

Again, as I’ve showed you one doesn’t have to stand up there and say trust me... there are ways of adjudicating, you can look at how these tests perform with randomly generated data.”

There's much more interesting stuff, if'n the politics and reality of climate change interests you. ;)

Uploaded by StanfordUniversity on May 13, 2010

(February 25, 2010) Ben Santer, a research scientist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, discusses the recent problems with the use of the freedom of information act for non-US citizens to demand complete records, including emails, on scientific research projects. Santer posits that this is a dangerous dilemma that will ultimately inhibit scientific research.  This course was originally presented in Stanford's Continuing Studies program.  

Stanford University: view it at YouTube

Hide The Decline ~ an examination by Greenman3610

2011-04-28T12:25:00.005-06:00

If you are curious about the details behind “Mann's Nature trick to hide the decline” meme and its denialists presentation - check out this
Climate Denial Crock of the Week video:
Unwinding “Hide the Decline”
Fresh out of the oven.
http://climatecrocks.com/2011/04/28/unwinding-hide-the-decline/
April 28, 2011

Here are some quick reference notes:
~~~~~~~~~

1:50 ~ the quote itself...
. . . lot’s of examples of the charge being repeated
2:40 ~ looking at the quote in more detail
3:15 ~ Mann, the man, the graph
3:40 ~ Mann’s data stopped at 1980
4:00 ~ his trick was to graft the instrument record from 1980 onward onto his proxy record of pre-1980.
4:10 ~ he Clearly Labeled each element on the graph!
4:25 ~ Incidentally, the original data behind this graph was openly available
“Table 1. 12 Proxy Indicators Available Back to AD 1000. Description (Series - MBH98 for details regarding data and reference), location (“LOC”-region or lat/lon coordinates, start year (“y0”) AD, and type (“TYPE”) of series is indicated. These data (and the NH series discussed in the text) are available over the internet through the World Data Center-A Paleoclimatology (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/paleo.html).”

5:00 ~ the glossy informational “WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999”
5:30 ~ on to: “... and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
5:40 ~ the thorny details of Keith Briffa data...
6:40 ~ graph of the “divergence problem”
7:00 ~ cross referencing with various temperature proxies
7:30 ~ the infamous Mann98 IPCC “hockey stick” graph in person
7:55 ~ again, clear references given for each element on the graph
{no hiding anything!}

8:00 ~ review of exonerating investigation and reviews, official and news media
8:20 ~ UK House of Commons - Science and Technology Committee:
“... insofar as we have been able to consider accusations of dishonesty... we consider that there is no case to answer.”

8:30 ~ the journals . . . “no scientific conspiracy”; the scientific societies . . . “the science is sound”
9:00 ~ And then came Dr. Richard Muller . . .
10:00 ~ Muller quoting the email: “Let’s use Mike’s trick to hide the decline” {but that’s not the real quote is it?}
10:50 ~ Muller: “What they say was: “how can we hide the decline”.”
11:33 ~ Muller: “so some of the people who read these papers asked to see the data, they refused to send it to them, the original raw data”
11:45 ~ but the study Muller is referring to had a clear note regarding the data, see 4:45
12:15 ~ Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature...
14:15 ~ Muller’s “shocking” preliminary Congressional testimony
16:30 ~ the pack turns on Muller

Prof Stewart explains "How The Earth Made Us"

2011-04-27T13:23:00.001-06:00

Over the past week I’ve been watching
Geology Professor Iain Stewart’s BBC production:
How The Earth Made Us, a truly epic five part series.

Absolutely fascinating stuff and a reminder that there’s always more to discover and learn from. For the receptive this series will amaze and leave you with a greater appreciation for how our planet has nurtured humanity and made civilizations possible.

The quote at 23:45 of "#5 Human Planet" really got my attention:
“If you add together all the landscapes we’ve altered, our cities, towns villages, farms (mining, etc) then 75% of the Earth’s ice free land mass owes it appearance to us.” {that is, reflects society’s impact.}
Somewhere else he points out that 5 times as much water is held in our reservoirs as is held in Earth’s rivers. Our impact is immense, but our appreciation so shallow... Professor Stewart is doing an excellent job of helping fill the gap.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I’ve found that this series is also available on YouTube.com courtesy of historyforall.

How Earth Made Us -1/5- Water

How Earth Made Us -2/5- Deep Earth

How Earth Made Us -3/5- Wind

How Earth Made Us -4/5- Fire

How Earth Made Us -5/5- Human Planet

But, CO2 Is Plant Food !

2011-04-27T13:00:00.009-06:00

And then there’s the "But CO2 Is Plant Food" meme.

Someone by the moniker of Dawei has posted a very informative collection of studies over at SkepticalScience.com concerning different aspects of an increasingly CO2 enriched atmosphere. It seems that things aren't quite as simple as that. The true story is much more complicated and not near as reassuring.

It's a complicated image and Dawei has done a great job of reviewing the wide range of available literature, some of it quite recent. Of course, some of the following studies, specially the FACE work, is pioneering and as new data is received and processed today’s understanding will be refined. Such is the way of science.

I share the full list of author’s Dawei cites because I'm tired of folks implying that only a few scientists make up the consensus, when in fact the consensus is made of hundreds and thousands of fibers such as those listed below.

This is just a teaser, for the full narrative accompanying the studies visit SkepticalScience.com

Climate control vs. climate change
The first and most obvious retort to this argument is that plants require more than just CO2 to live. Owners of industrial greenhouses who purchase excess CO2 also invest considerable effort in keeping their plants at optimum growing conditions, particularly with respect to temperature and moisture.

As CO2 continues to change the global climate, both of these variables are subject to change in an unfavorable way for a certain species in a certain region...
Lobell et al. 2008,
Luo 2009,
Zhao and Running 2010,
Challinor et al. 2010,
Lobell et al. 2011.
Only recently have researchers begun to pull away from these controlled settings and turn their attention to outdoor experiments. Known as Free-Air CO2 Enrichment or “FACE”, these studies observe natural or agricultural plants in a typical outdoor setting while exposing them to a controlled release of CO2...
Leaky et al. 2009,
Long et al. 2006,
Ainsworth 2005,
Morgan et al. 2005.

C3 & C4
Photosynthesis comes in a few different flavors, two of which are C3 and C4...
Cure and Acock 1986 (a greenhouse study)
Leaky et al. 2006 (a FACE study)
Crafts-Brandner & Salvucci, 2000,
Salvucci et al. 2001.

Chemical Responses & Nutrition
Even within a specific type of photosynthesis—indeed, even within a specific species—the positive responses to enhanced CO2 can vary widely. Nutrient availability in particular can greatly affect a plant’s response to excess CO2...
Stöcklin and Körner 2002,
Norby et al. 2010,
Larson et al. 2010.
The ability of plants to maintain sufficient nitrogen under excess CO2 conditions is also reduced for reasons not fully understood...
Bloom et al. 2010,
Taub and Wang 2008.

It has also been found that excess CO2 can make certain agricultural plants less nutritious for human and animal consumption...
Zhu 2005, a three-year FACE study,
Högy et al. 2009, also a FACE study

Increased CO2 has been shown to lead to lower production of certain chemical defense mechanisms in soybeans, making them more vulnerable to pest attack and diseases...
Zavala et al. 2008,
Eastburn et al. 2010.
Other studies have shown production of phenolics and tannins to increase under enhanced CO2 in some species, as well as many alkaloids...
Peñuelas and Estiarte 1999,
Ziska et al. 2005,
Stiling and Cornelissen 2007.
Furthermore, many “cyanogenic” species...
Gleadow et al., 2009a and Gleadow et al. 2009b.

Interactions with other species
Competing plant species have also been shown to drastically alter expected benefits from excess CO2...
Navas et al. 1999,
Poorter and Navas 2003
Ziska and George 2004,
Ziska et al. 2004,
Ziska and Teasdale 2000.
There is some evidence that interacting bacterial communities, particularly in the roots, will be affected through elevated CO2, leading to mixed results on overall plant health.
Treseder 2004,
Melloy et al. 2010.

Temperature
... But there is another key piece to reduced stomatal conductance, considering that 90% of a plant’s water use is actually for cooling of the leaves and nothing more...
Ball et al. 1988,
Idso et al. 1993,
Long et al. 2006,
Roden et al. 1998.

Ozone
CO2 is not the only atmospheric gas that is on the rise: concentrations of ground-level ozone (O3) are expected to rise 23% by 2050 due to continuing anthropogenic emissions of precursor gases like methane and nitrous oxides...
Monson et al. 1991,
Morgan et al. 2006,
Ainsworth 2008,
Feng et al. 2008,
Warrington 1988.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Let The Free Market Address Conservation” Say What?

2011-04-13T15:10:00.002-06:00

“Let The Free Market Address Conservation” the headline proclaimed. Say what? Leave the “free market” alone to address our environmental crisis as it sees fit? You mean the “free market” that sent USA manufacturing jobs overseas, effectively gutting the future of America’s middle class? The “free market” that is bulldozing mountain after mountain in the Appalachians only to fill in valley after productive valley with rubble and poisonous tailings?

The same “free market” dedicated to maximizing profits while minimizing liabilities by making them someone else’s problem or ignoring them? The “free market” that doesn’t plan for long term maintenance as reflected in the sorry state of America’s infrastructure of bridges, water treatment facilities, etc.? The “free market” that is cutting social programs to the bone, while continuing its faith-based diplomacy by bombs and an ever increasing military/industrial/political complex?

The “free market” that establishes “think tanks” such as Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute, SPPI, and more? Who have developed the art of deception and mass media propaganda to the level that with smoke and mirrors they can make a tiny clique of politically motivated contrarians seem like “half the scientific community” to gullible folks - while broadcasting dishonest spins on the science that a serious high school science class could drive through.

“Free market” is an Orwellian triumph of words over substance. Where’s the freedom when 2% of the richest adults in the world own more than half of all wealth and when half the world’s population owns barely 1% of all wealth?

To imagine that our “free market” leaders, or forces, care one fig about the welfare of future generations is to ignore a couple hundred years worth of human history. The “free market” may be excellent at extracting and consuming - but sustaining something for future generations is simply not within it’s bubble of awareness, let alone concern.

From The Halls of Montezuma

2011-04-08T20:18:00.000-06:00

Here's an update to the previous post.

With some support and help from Daniel Bailey I had a post accepted at SkepticalScience.com.

From The Halls of Montezuma
Posted on 9 April 2011
http://www.skepticalscience.com/from-the-halls-of-montezuma.html

USA Navy's Chief Oceanographer David Titley

2011-03-24T02:21:00.004-06:00

USA Navy's Chief Oceanographer David Titley was a long time serious skeptic regarding anthropogenic global warming. Still this man has to pay attention to what's happening on this planet and its oceans. He has had a change of heart and has some thoughts to share.
Seems to me this guy's opinion ought to carry a little weight. Check it out:

TED at the Pentagon - Rear Admiral David Titley, USN -
Climate Change and National Security (25 min)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
or a shorter version:
US Navy Chief Oceanographer: I Was Formerly a Climate Skeptic (9 min)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
What does climate change mean for the US Navy? (4 min)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Admiral David Titley, USN, Oceanographer and Navigator of the Navy responds to a question from Cathy Lewis, Executive Producer at WHRO in Norfolk, Virginia regarding how he answers climate change skeptics. "...basically, try to walk through the physics at a very, very basic, conceptual level...we know the climate's changing. There's just too much data for us...It all lines up with a consistent picture."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Then there's the video's from the
National Intelligence Council's ~ Implications of Global Climate Change

Natl. Sec. Implications of Global Climate Change Pt. 2
Dr. Ron Filadelfo talks about leading a study team charged with figuring out the affects of climate change in the US and abroad. He gives insight into the collaboration between his organization and other military advisers to come up with worst case scenarios and preventative measures.
~ ~ ~

(5:50) "Our military advising board really look at this as risk. . . They talk about these huge ramifications that could occur to our nation down the road. And as prudent military planners they say that throughout our careers we’ve never dealt with 100% certainty. . .
"(A sound bit) from General Sullivan: “As military guys know that if we wait for 100% certainty on the battlefield, something bad has happened."
When military guys, and national security planners know there’s a risk that maybe all these bird brain scientists could be right, we as a nation better be ready.”

Natl. Sec. Implications of Global Climate Change Pt. 3
Retired Major General Richard Engel of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), talks about the threat climate change poses to US national security. He shares the results of case studies conducted by the intelligence community and speaks to the methodology behind their development.

Natl. Sec. Implications of Global Climate Change Pt. 4
Rear Admiral David Titley explains how climate change could impact US Naval operations. He talks about sea level rise, ocean acidification and the climate negotiations in Copenhagen.

Planned Parenthood attacked by Colorado Rep. Tipton

2011-02-28T12:31:00.015-07:00

Admittedly anthropogenic global warming is my pet issue, but I am aware of the rest of the world. Recently, I felt compelled to weigh in on the US House of Representatives plans to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, an organization of critical health importance to women, couples and families.

Since Planned Parenthood is overshadowed by the abortion question I want to point out an essay written long ago, but that remains unsurpassed in it's humane examination of the issue: "Abortion, Right and Wrong" By Rachel Richardson Smith
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

{The following is my letter sent to Congressman Tipton
and the Durango Herald - 3/6/11}:

Tipton Playing Politics With Women's Lives

Open letter to Congressman Tipton,
Recently, I called US Representative Tipton’s office to voice my objection to a bill (later passed) for cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood. I said it was a short sighted self-destructive choice. He sent me a reply starting off his justification for voting to shut down funding for Planned Parenthood: “I believe in protecting the sanctity of all human life. . .”

My first reaction was: What does cutting off HIV tests, cancer screenings, sex education, birth control, prenatal screening by crippling Planned Parenthood do for the sanctity of life? What about the sanctity of the living women and children who will be harmed because of this shortsighted penny pinching action that guarantees down the road ballooning troubles. It makes no sense.

My second reaction was, if this is about a woman’s right to choose an abortion: Why would “believing in the sanctity of all human life” preclude having on rare occasions to terminate one? Tipton favors expansive gun freedoms which assume that at times a citizen has the right to blow away someone else’s life.

Then there’s the Republican’s embrace of that Iraq War of choice and its unnecessary massive loss of innocent life. What happened to the non-threatening Iraqi children and peasant’s “sanctity of all human life?” How much consideration was, or is, given to the sanctity of all those lives? The hypocrisy overwhelms.

Representative Tipton you might claim; self-defense justifies those killings. OK then, right.

But, that begs the question: What justification do Republican’s have to strip a woman of her right to exercise self-defense? An honest examination of aborted pregnancies reveals that it is about difficult anguished survival decisions. Self-defense of a most primal nature.

There is a uniquely female right to self-defense and self-determination that Republicans and the religious right can’t seem to abide. Why?

Sir, I believe it’s shameful to use the extremely personal abortion crisis for a political bludgeon.

Sincerely

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Another Climategate investigation, another vindication for scientists

2011-02-25T22:56:00.003-07:00

Hot off the press, another investigation into the stolen CRU emails, and once again it was found that the scientists acted in good faith and are innocent of the extreme charges the media echo-chamber has been fabricating.
Sadly many will claim it just proves how all encompassing the scientific conspiracy is.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Inspector General’s Review of Stolen Emails Confirms No Evidence of Wrong-Doing by NOAA Climate Scientists
Report is the latest independent analysis to clear climate scientists of allegations of mishandling of climate information
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110224_climate.html

The Inspector General
February 24, 2011

At the request of U.S. Sen. Inhofe, the Department of Commerce Inspector General conducted an independent review of the emails stolen in November 2009 from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and found no evidence of impropriety or reason to doubt NOAA’s handling of its climate data. The Inspector General was asked to look into how NOAA reacted to the leak and to determine if there was evidence of improper manipulation of data, failure to adhere to appropriate peer review procedures, or failure to comply with Information Quality Act and Freedom of Information Act guidelines.

“We welcome the Inspector General’s report, which is the latest independent analysis to clear climate scientists of allegations of mishandling of climate information,” said Mary Glackin, NOAA’s deputy under secretary for operations. “None of the investigations have found any evidence to question the ethics of our scientists or raise doubts about NOAA’s understanding of climate change science.”

* “We found no evidence in the CRU emails that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data comprising the [Global Historical Climatology Network – monthly] GHCN-M dataset.” (Page 11)
* “We found no evidence in the CRU emails to suggest that NOAA failed to adhere to its peer review procedures prior to its dissemination of information.” (Page 11)
* “We found no evidence in the CRU emails to suggest that NOAA violated its obligations under the IQA.” (Page 12)
* “We found no evidence in the CRU emails to suggest that NOAA violated its obligations under the Shelby Amendment.” (Page 16)

The report notes a careful review of eight e-mails that it said “warranted further examination to clarify any possible issues involving the scientific integrity of particular NOAA scientists or NOAA’s data,” that was completed and did not reveal reason to doubt the scientific integrity of NOAA scientists or data.

The report questions the way NOAA handled a response to four FOIA requests in 2007,. The FOIA requests sought documents related to the review and comments of part of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. NOAA scientists were given legal advice that IPCC work done by scientists were records of the IPCC, not NOAA. The requesters were directed to the IPCC, which subsequently made available the review, comments and responses which are online at IPCC and http://www.hcl.harvard.edu.

“The NOAA scientists responded in good faith to the FOIA requests based on their understanding of the request and in accordance with the legal guidance provided in 2007,” Glackin said.

Professor Ian Plimer ~ what a skeptic looks like

2011-02-24T17:19:00.004-07:00

Professor Ian Plimer wrote "Heaven and Earth" debunking current climatologist's "consensus."

He’s a professor, we can trust him.
But what kind of professor writes books about climatology? A heavily invested Mining Geologist? Hmmm ... of course, so why shouldn’t he write about climatology portraying himself as an impartial expert? Not just any impartial expert, but the impartial expert poised to expose the seamy underbelly of the global climatology community. No matter, if his book reports science honestly it belongs. But, we the people, do have a right to expect him to portray that science accurately!

Geology Professor Plimer’s book “Heaven and Earth” promises the people the real low down on climate science. As it turns out his book has been seriously critiqued and turns out to have a great many flaws and gross errors. Trouble is Plimer has craftily massaged his book into a political battle cry, appealing to his audience of scared and angry faithful, resentful of science and all too ready to embrace Plimer’s reassuring balm. It is so well written for these folks that anyone daring to question it can immediately be dismissed - no controversy. Just willfully ignoring the evidence.

Guess it has been quite a circus in Australia, even your holiness Cardinal George Pell jumped onto the bandwagon decrying global warming as a lie. Going so far as to try to influence the legislature. This in turn seemed to engage the Director of Meteorology of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Dr. Greg Ayers (a real climatologist), to demand to be heard before the Australian Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, and have his testimony entered into the record.
{for the story click here}
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I submit that Professor Plimer is an excellent example of the AGW “skeptical” scientist, with passionate ideological beliefs and deep monetary interests. More interested in presenting smooth polemics than in seeking to understand and learn from the full body of evidence available.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bio:
Professor Plimer has long-standing roles as a non-executive director with Australia-based mining companies Ivanhoe Australia and CBH Resources, which mainly dig up silver, gold, lead, copper, zinc and other minerals. Professor Plimer is shown in company reports to have earned about $270,000 from Ivanhoe in the last two years. He earned more than $300,000 from CBH Resources over the same period. He is also a director of UK-listed Kefi Minerals, where he recently disposed of 2,400,000 shares worth about $350,000. He has recently taken on the role as chairman of an unlisted tin mining company, called TNT Limited.
Professor Plimer is also a director of Ormil Energy, which is currently engaged in a $3.2 million commitment to investigate coal seam gas and coal mine gas in the Sydney basin, pending government approvals.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Graham Readfearn ~ 24 February 2011
See Heavenly Belief in Science Fiction
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

How does Ian Plimer’s “Heaven and Earth” look under close examination?
Well, as a work of political craftsmanship, it is a pretty nice example.
Unfortunately, as a source for accurate climatology information it falls on its face.
Here is a detailed critique, page numbers and all:
The science is missing from Ian Plimer's "Heaven and Earth"
April 23, 2009 ~ Tim Lambert
~ ~ ~
also,
Still moving Heaven and Earth to get answers from Plimer

~ ~ ~
also,
Plimer questions Monbiot

~ ~ ~
also,
Plimer’s homework assignment

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thank you Scott Mandia for getting the word out.
Global Warming: Man or Myth?

Ayers vs. Errors: Defending Climate Science

Why We Need The IPCC

2011-02-20T20:00:00.006-07:00

On February 19th the US House Republicans voted 244-179 to kill funding for the International Panel on Climate Change because they claim we can’t trust them and we don’t need their information anyways. (The bill has yet to pass the Senate.) 

To appreciate why such thinking is shortsighted we need to understand what the IPCC actually is. First, we should recognize that weather knows no borders and that international cooperation among meteorologists started way back in 1873 with the founding of the International Meteorological Organization. In 1950 it evolved into the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). 

In the early 1960s our first weather satellites blasted into orbit, followed every few years by improved generations of satellites. Climatologists were beginning to learn about our atmosphere and weather dynamics like never before. What used to be a discipline taught out of a few text books exploded in complexity and volume.

In response universities and governmental plus nongovernmental organizations throughout the world started establishing dozen, eventually hundreds, of Earth and Climate study programs. 

At the same time, the physics of CO2 made it clear that observed increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 would lead to increasing global temperatures. This conclusion was, and is, unavoidable given that greenhouse gases inhibit loss of warmth - like a blanket. By increasing atmospheric CO2 we’re basically making our planet’s blanket thicker. It’s well-understood physics.

Where things get complex is in mapping the full scope of the cascading effects following from the atmosphere’s increasing temperature and humidity. This is where theories and models come into play, but theories and models need to be tested and refined. Something the increasing flood of incoming data was making possible.

Reports and datasets piling up right and left. This stuff needed to get organized. How else could this knowledge become publicly available and useful? Even the G7, leaders of the free world, recognized the need when they initiated a process culminating in 1988 with the WMO and the United Nations Environment Program establishing the IPCC.

The new groups charge was to: “assess the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information that relates to human induced climate change.” It seemed like a thoughtful thing for world leaders to do. 

Did you know the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) doesn’t do research? Their duty is “to organize the assessment and summarizing of research” done throughout the world. Incidentally, the process is open to the review and critique of anyone competent to keep up with the formidable science. 

In itself, the IPCC is only a few offices and ten employees. Beyond that, periodically hundreds of scientists donate their time when helping develop and publish reports. The IPCC sets up meetings and symposiums where scientists get together to exchange information. These meetings review the full spectrum of current published reports including claims from qualified skeptics; the IPCC can’t help it when facts and due science consistently reveal gross deficits in the veracity of denialist claims. After formal vetting the IPCC publishes their compilations of the available climatology. 

IPCC reports are acknowledged by the world’s practicing climatologists to be the authoritative assessment of the current state of understanding. Now this doesn’t mean they are perfect, but it does mean they know more about the science than anyone else. That alone demands their expert assessments receive more respect than politically driven misrepresentations. 

I question why Republicans have to resort to imaginary global conspiracy theories? Why put so much effort into demonized thousands of hard working scientists who compile their studies in good faith? Uncomfortable truths are no justification for ignoring the evidence!  

Watching the way “skeptical” groups like Marshall Institute, SPPI, Heartland and their media echo-chamber attack the IPCC makes me think of those long ago Texas Fence Cutting Wars. These skirmishes were initiated by old time Cattle Baron’s who refused to recognize that the open prairie was disappearing and that fences and cooperation were the unavoidable waves of the future.

The IPCC offers an open platform for the nations of our shrinking planet to work together in coming to grips with what the science is discovering. Republicans should replace their politically driven campaign of willful ignorance and denial with a good-faith effort to learn about climate realities. For this we need an international coordinating agency, exactly like the IPCC.

Highlights Index

2011-02-04T11:43:00.014-07:00

The Denial Machine Keeps Cranking... an essay
January 20, 2011

“The Great Global Warming Swindle” is itself a Fraud and a Swindle ~ by Bill Butler ~
December 30, 2010

Open Letters to Lord Monckton and SPPI
{#11a} SPPI, Monckton, Seitz, WSJ - anatomy of a character assassination
{#11b} Monckton, Ferguson, SPPI, v. Dr. Ben Santer - anatomy of a character assassination
{#11c} Monckton, Ferguson, SPPI, v. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri (IPCC) - anatomy of a character assassination

AN UNAUTHORIZED SORTING OF LORD CHRIS MONCKTON’S (9/14/2009) POWER POINT PRESENTATION
August 10, 2010

Climate Change & Contrarians
March 7, 2010
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Regarding the speculative Village at Wolf Creek development please visit:
http://no-villageatwolfcreek.blogspot.com/
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Olden Goldies:
Reflections On Justice Sotomayor’s Confirmation Process
August 14, 2009
An Essay Concerning Our Weather
Nov/Dec 1995 and Nov/Dec 2005
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

August, 2008:
Why start this blog?

A historic snafu in need of revisiting

There They Go Again........

What is Science's Sin?

God flowing into the Word